


Tomorrow Never Knows

by Silverstar1



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Alan and Gordon coming up with a terrible plan: this is great, Alan needs a hug, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brains Is a Good Bro, Desert Island, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gordon needs a hug, He's very underrated, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Scott overhearing said plan: i have concerns, Shipwrecks, Suspense, it's me there's always going to be angst, kind of?, rescue gone wrong, so does Scott, the chaos crew are back, they all do really, this sounds like an au but i promise it isn't, what did you expect?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 105,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverstar1/pseuds/Silverstar1
Summary: Things had not gone according to plan, to say the least. Now they were trapped on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere with no hope of rescue and increasingly slim chances of survival. To make matters worse, the Chaos Crew had shown up. This was not going to be a fun week.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! If you recognise this fic, then it's because I first published it on Fanfiction.net about a year ago. The good news is that this means I'll be posting a new chapter everyday but if you're especially eager then you can pop over to my profile there (Silverstar) and read the whole thing in one go.  
> Almost all of my works are based on the new series, but as I was raised with the original version there are still a couple of things that creep into my writing, such as John being the second eldest (I'm still completely confused as to whether that's canon or not?) and blond while Gordon's the redhead of the family.  
> Oh, and if you're offended by bad language, then this may not be the fic for you. I don't want to upset anyone!

"I have a bad feeling about this rescue."

While Gordon fought the urge to laugh at this remark, Virgil sat up and turned around in his chair to give Alan a concerned look. It's not as though this reaction was completely unfounded – Alan was strangely intuitive at times and Gordon himself could recall a couple of occasions where his brother had pulled him back from near death where there had been no apparent warnings – but Gordon can't help but smirk anyway.

"Aw, really? Did you not get enough sleep? Is lil Allie tired?"

He spied Alan flipping him off in the reflection in Two's windshield. A second later came the sharp sound of a smack as Virgil whacked Alan's finger down.

"Hey," the middle Tracy's voice was low with an unspoken warning. "None of that on my ship."

"As if you don't swear as much as the rest of us," Alan muttered, slinking low in his seat. He painted a pretty miserable picture and for a moment Gordon felt sorry for him. It wasn't his kid brother's fault that Gordon was in a bad mood – he'd been flying rescues non-stop since the early hours and sleep deprivation combined with a lack of food always made him grouchy. He made a mental note to apologise later – probably with a plate of waffles with a generous helping of Nutella and strawberries on the side – and filed it to the back of his mind. When he tried to catch Alan's eye in the reflection, his brother deliberately looked away. Something cold and ugly clenched in Gordon's chest and he knitted his fingers together on his lap, shifting in his chair. He never liked starting a rescue with an unresolved argument with one of his brothers; hell, an unresolved argument with anyone he cared about. Despite Virgil's muttered claims otherwise, he hated conflict and did his best to avoid it or to break it up with humour whenever possible.

Scott wandered into the cabin and froze. Gordon winced, wondering if the tension was truly that noticeable. His brother hesitated, one hand flying to his sash instinctively like it always did when he was thinking about something – it was one of Scott's tells – he always fiddled with his shirt when he was thinking, and it translated onto his IR uniform with ease. It also happened to make him terrible at poker.

"What's wrong?" Virgil called over his shoulder. His voice was muffled by the fact he was half-buried amongst the controls, practically waist-deep in start-up protocols. Gordon swiped a couple of the holographs across to his own panel to give his brother a hand before Virgil could notice and get agitated about it, because even after years of flying together he still took Gordon's offering of help as a suggestion that he was being incompetent as a pilot. Gordon had given up trying to persuade him otherwise. Hell, the guy probably had a complex or something. He reached up and flicked a few switches, fingers gliding across the holograms and clearing the panel just in time for Virgil to look across. Gordon shot him an innocent smile. Virgil narrowed his eyes.

"Does this really need all four of us?"

"Kayo's still on duty," Alan commented, still not looking up from his Tablet. He was evidently still sulking, and, to be fair, Gordon couldn't blame him; he would be the first to admit that he'd been a bit harsh on the kid. "And John's got the exosuit."

Scott still hesitated.

"Honestly?" Virgil looked up, start-up checks fully cleared. A single holograph blinked above the control panel, but when Gordon stole a closer look, he could see that it was merely a request from Five for a direct transmission. He tapped at it until John's hologram blinked into life, the blond falling silent at Gordon's gesture towards their brothers.

"This could get messy," Virgil continued, gripping the back of his chair in order to twist and maintain eye contact. "I think we need you there."

Scott nodded. "FAB." His hand hovered over Gordon's shoulder for a moment and Gordon stared straight ahead, pretending not to notice; this was his co-pilot's chair and he was not giving it up without a fight, no matter what the age difference. Scott turned back to the second spare chair next to Alan, fingers tapping a familiar rhythm along his sash from one of the early 2000s albums they grew up listening to in their Dad's car in Kansas. Gordon relaxed upon hearing it without meaning to, fingers gripping tightly onto the sides of his chair at the sudden influx of light from the opening hangar doors. Thunderbird Two rumbled around him, comforting and familiar as she purred her way along the runway. Dust spiralled away, scattering about fake palm trees in mini tornadoes. He traced their path with one finger against the glass before Two climbed to a steeper incline and he found himself forced back in his seat, safety harness digging into his chest painfully.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Virgil exchanged words quietly with John, their conversation quick-paced, physics-filled and a general cluster of information that Gordon was certain he didn't need to know. Scott's safety-harness clicked behind him and he twisted in his seat, raising a brow at his brother.

Scott froze. "What?"

"You don't need to prep the pod yet," Gordon pointed out. "We're still five minutes out."

"I like to be prepared."

"Control-freak," Gordon muttered under his breath, coughing into his fist and blinking innocently up at Scott when his brother glared at him. Across from them Alan laughed despite himself and hastily covered it up with another souring look towards Gordon. The aquanaut widened his eyes, draping both hands over the back of the chair in a half-praying gesture. Alan shook his head. Gordon bit his lip and blinked slowly at him, crocodile tears welling up with a bit of effort.

"Fuck you," Alan mouthed.

Gordon grinned. "Love you too," he shouted cheerfully, Virgil jolting at the sudden sound.

"Are you two talking again?"

"Obviously." Gordon held out a hand for Alan to fist bump. "We're the Terrible Two." He thrust a thumb over his shoulder in Scott's direction. "Also, are you gonna do something about him?" He could feel the dirty look Scott was shooting him burning into his back.

"Sit back down," Virgil instructed. His voice was filled with the commanding tones synonymous with a rescue, but when Gordon glanced across the corners of his mouth were twitching with a barely concealed smile. Scott sat back down with a huff, batting Alan's feet away from his lap as he did so.

"Are you all clear on the situation?" John didn't bother with a greeting. Charming. Talking of which. Gordon raised an arm, waving his hand wildly in the air and narrowly avoiding smacking Scott in the face. His older brother gave a long-suffering sigh and tugged Gordon's wrist back down to safer heights.

"Yes, Gordon?"

"Wow, it's like school again. Also, I have literally no idea about this rescue."

Behind him, Alan laughed.

"Really?" John sounded as exasperated as he looked.

"Really." Gordon kicked his feet up onto the panel. "You point, I go." He lifted his legs back off the controls following a murderous glare from Virgil – normally this wouldn't bother him in the slightest, but Four was in need of a new paint job and it was his brother's turn to pick up the colours from the mainland – he wasn't about to risk his sub simply for a more comfortable position.

John had his arms crossed. There was an amused flash of lights behind him, proof that EOS, at least, appreciated Gordon's sense of humour. "I've sent the schematics across," John started speaking, Gordon startling back into full awareness. "There's a severe sea storm formed across the South Atlantic. Two ships collided – one a container and the second a small cruise-liner en-route from Miami. The damage is severe, trapping many passengers in the lower compartments, while both ships are taking on water. The collision combined with the currents caught them in a spin, and so far I've been unable to identify the contents of the containers, so it could very well be combustible or toxic."

Something wasn't adding up. Gordon leant forwards, confusion leaking tension into his posture. "How'd they end up crashing into each other? The Mid-Atlantic Radar System runs off satellites; a sea storm shouldn't cause too much interference."

John hesitated. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "According to my scans, there was a pulse of electromagnetic interference at the time. EOS noted it when it happened which is how I was able to pick up on their distress call so quickly."

There was another click from behind Gordon. Scott appeared at his side moments later, reaching out to spin the hologram closer. "Chaos Crew?"

Gordon tensed. Despite their numerous clashes in the past, that name still managed to strike apprehension and a touch of fear into him. Alan seemed to share this feeling as he clenched his fists and fixed his sights out of the window. His sash was creased in a white-knuckle grip, but he didn't say a word.

"I don't think so." John fell silent, attention caught by another situation. He sent the information across to Kayo in Thunderbird Shadow and returned to running a further analysis of the rescue zone. No eerily familiar purple or yellow showed up and he found himself faced with merely a second alert about the state of the cruise ship. It appeared that crew of the container ship had managed to free themselves towards the top deck but now found themselves in danger from the storm; launching their escape pods would result in certain death. The captain was suggesting that they head across to the cruise-ship and attempt to help the trapped passengers; John spent a couple of minutes dissuading them. "There's no sign of the Chaos Crew in the area," he continued, "but it's possible that they did have something to do with the interference remotely." He reached across for a flashing pink symbol. "I'll have Penelope check it out."

"Thanks, John." Scott clapped a hand to Gordon's shoulder. "Come on, let's go set up the pod. Unless you think it's too early?"

The sarcasm was dripping from his voice and Virgil was hard-pressed not to make a retort of his own. He did take great pleasure in dropping Two into a steeper descent than necessary, although he suspected that it was his two younger brothers that suffered the most from that particular manoeuvre. Scott knew what he was doing however, and the message that flashed up across his control column a moment later spoke measures. Virgil tried not to laugh.

It was relatively dark in the Pod, a stark contrast to the bright lights and skies of the cockpit above. Alan rubbed at his eyes, blinking the spots from his vision. He was evidently still on edge, jumpier than usual and hair ruffled from where he'd been running his hands through it. Gordon knocked their shoulders together.

"You alright?"

Alan stole a glance at Scott. Their eldest brother was pretending not to hear their whispered conversation, but his head was tilted slightly to the left to allow him to listen in better. Two jolted around them, the movements stifled by the solid bulk of the aircraft, and Gordon shifted his weight more evenly between his feet in an attempt to stop himself from falling over. It had happened in the past and he was by no means eager to repeat the experience.

"Don't know," Alan finally muttered. He ducked his head, avoiding Gordon's questioning look. "I told you this rescue felt weird and you laughed at me."

Gordon winced. "Okay, my bad. That was kinda harsh." He rapped his knuckles against the helmet swinging by his brother's side. "Hey, look at me, would you?"

Alan lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, but this could just as easily have been from tiredness as it could tears. "Are you going to laugh at me again?"

"What? No." Gordon waited until Scott had left the descending platform and was assembling one of the pods, safely out of earshot. "Okay, I know was a jerk before about it, but if this is genuinely freaking you out then you can stay here. Say you're not feeling well or something. I'll back you up."

"And face the smother-hens?" Alan looked horrified, but the beginnings of a smile were evident on his face, eyes brightening at the familiar banter. "Seriously Gordo, I'm not staying behind. Plus, if something does happen, then how am I supposed to help when I'm all the way up here?"

Gordon shrugged. "Fair enough." He stretched, adjusting his sash and leapt down from the platform, shooting Alan a final salute as he did so. "See you on the flip side."

Scott, on the other side of the pod, shot him a curious look and gestured towards Alan with a shrug and a tap to his wrist console. Gordon fought the urge to roll his eyes, but obliged, tapping a message out and sending it across with a swipe of his fingers, returning his attention to Thunderbird Four. Despite his assurances, Scott's voice could be heard, questioning Alan. The youngest Tracy sounded exasperated, promising that he was fine and that he was fit for the rescue.

"Gordon, you ready for launch?"

Gordon startled at Virgil's voice. His brother raised a brow, disembodied hologram floating above the wrist console with an expression of bemusement. "Give me thirty seconds."

Four glowed about him, warm and welcoming. Her consoles lit up in a blue glow, calm like the ocean on a clear day, readouts springing up with further information about the mission at hand and the couple of scratches the sub had received as damage on the previous rescue. Gordon made a mental note to run a full scan of Four when he returned to the Pod, just to be sure that she was in fit shape for their training in a couple of weeks.

The waters outside were angry and dark, attacking the end of the launch chute with violent waves, white crests of rage cascading down in a torrent. Four shuddered, plunging into the fray without protest. The howling of the wind vanished beneath the surface, but the sheer strength of the currents became evident in an instant as the Thunderbird trembled, tossed about as though she weighed nothing. Gordon tightened his grip on the controls, guiding Four into a deeper descent where the ocean grew darker and, hopefully, calmer.

"Approaching the target now."

Scott's voice sounded somewhat strained. "Attempting to grapple down."

Gordon narrowly avoided being flung against his controls. Four spiralled to the left, perilously skidding over the rim of twisted dark metal, ugly fuel leaking into the water like blood. "Is that a good idea?" He questioned, frowning at his brother's hologram. "Those are some serious gusts up there, you'll get blown to pieces."

Scott was quiet. "If I didn't think it was possible," he spoke after a moment, "do you really think I would be letting Alan try?"

This was a fair point. Gordon raised his hands in surrender, slamming them back onto the controls as Four lurched sideways again. The currents were coursing through the water, colliding with one another in a cruel mirror of the ships above. It took another thirty seconds – an eternity when all time was precious and a single delay could have fatal consequences – but Gordon manage to tap into their paths and plot a new route that would take him on a slow orbit of both ships without becoming dragged into the tornado of debris that the currents had picked up and was now attempting to launch at him.

Above the ocean surface it had been hard to glimpse the destruction of the two ships, with all views obscured by the driving rain and thick clouds, but below the waters the true picture became clearer. The two ships were twisted and torn together in a mangled web of metal and glass, jagged edges bleeding fuel and spilling the innards of the ships into the sea, treasures of families and crews lost to the darkness below in an instant. Gordon cringed at the sight of the destroyed cruise ship – it was obvious which of the crafts had taken the greater impact. Lights flickered on and off like lightning along its hull, paint peeling back along the razor-sharp edges of ruined metal plating.

"I've got a clear view of both ships," he reported back on the open radio. "Pulling these two apart is not going to be an option. We're going to have to remove all the passengers and crew manually."

Alan, something sticky and dark in colour smeared across his helmet that looked suspiciously like blood, appeared above the holograph projector. "What about the containers?" He questioned. "We don't know what's in them."

"Alan's right," Virgil interjected before Gordon could reply. "If they're carrying toxic material and they've received any damage then that could be released into the oceans."

Gordon of all people, with his qualifications in marine biology, knew how devastating the effects of such a leak could be. He activated Four's searchlights and raked them along the hull of the container ship, trying to find a way to scan all of the containers without having to leave the relative safety of the Thunderbird; he knew well enough how dangerous these waters could be.

"I still haven't been able to bring up the ship's logs," John was saying. The tell-tale signs of stress were becoming evident in the slight tightness to his voice and hunched posture of his shoulders as he leant over Five's scanners, a brief respite from the weightlessness of Zero-Gee. "Sorry guys, but it looks like you'll have to track down those containers manually."

There was a groaning from both ships that pierced through the water, rattling the currents and Four in turn. Gordon patted the bulkhead to his left and guided his Thunderbird closer to the container ship's flank. Thunderbird Two's lights drilled through the churning sea as the grapples descended, lifting the entwined crafts as high out of the water as Virgil dared push them.

"That may be easier said than done." Scott ducked a flying piece of beam that swung diagonally across the deck in the wake of another gust. "Getting to the crew is our main priority and right now I don't know how long it'll take."

Gordon resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment. "I'll go," he announced, sliding his helmet on and plotting a secondary route for Four in case of a change in the currents. "I can see a way in. I'll head up onto the decks, secure any containers that are sliding towards the cruise liner and figure out what's in them."

"Swimming in those currents is…." John trailed off, hesitating. "Not advisable," he concluded.

"Meh." Gordon shrugged and gave him an easy grin. "Sounds fun."

Despite the heater in his suit, the sudden shock of water about him was freezing and had him sucking in a sharp breath. He clung to the underside of Four as tightly as possible, pressing his back to the smooth curve of metal, fixing his sights on the furious ocean between himself and the ships with a pang of nerves. John was speaking in his ear, voice soft and calm as it echoed about the helmet. Gordon knew damn well what his brother was doing and appreciated it.

"Heading across now."

Scott's reply was short and barked. "FAB."

There was a split second in which a piece of twisted metal tore away from the rest of the ship and spiralled towards him, narrowly avoiding slicing his cable in half and sheering along the side of his oxygen tank with an ugly screech. Gordon slammed his hands and feet against the panelling of the cruise liner, gecko gloves locking on with an unheard snicker, breathing heavily. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears and he removed one hand from the metal to pat at the side of his tank, checking for damage.

"Four, that was a near miss." John sounded almost clinical, deep in his International Rescue persona. There was an undertone of concern that only his family picked up on. "Are you alright?"

Gordon closed his eyes and caught his breath. "Just…peachy." He leant back as far as he dared and glimpsed the bright lights of Two shining like a beacon high above. "Let's do this."

The climb was a terrifying ascent of broiling waters and angry metal, the world tilting dangerously far to the left and right several times. The darkness of the ocean collided with the pure sunlight of Two's search beam, flashes of lightning cascading across the sea surface, darting about the Thunderbird's engines in a petrifying game of cat-and-mouse. Gordon fumbled at the rim of the deck, grabbing at a bedraggled safety rope and yanking himself onto the splintered boards with a gasp. Above him Two's engines whined, the aircraft dropping a metre or two as Virgil battled for control. Gordon winced.

"Hey Virg," he called, one hand pressed to his sash radio. "You good?"

Virgil didn't reply for a minute. "Lightning shields are running low," he snapped, voice terse. "One more hit and I'm out."

Across the deck, on the far side and surrounded by twisted webs of rigging, Pod Four stood, door open and supported by the rim of the ship. Alan was crouched on the corrugated metal, uniform glowing a faint red and blue in the storm air. His arms waved as he motioned more petrified passengers onto the safety of the Pod. Scott was nowhere to be seen.

"Scott," Gordon barked into his radio, an unnerving fear settling cold in his chest. "Where are you?"

A burst of radio static replied. "Container ship."

"That's my job."

Scott's figure appeared, silhouetted by the lightning as he hovered above the opposite deck, jetpack spluttering in the sheer force of the gales. "Sorry, Four." He dived back down. "I figured I'd make a head start."

Gordon spat out a curse that had Alan startling, jolting up on the door to the Pod and staring at him incredulously. Gordon waved a hand at him, relaxing at the amused chuckle his brother let out, and bounded across the deck to join Scott. Thunder rumbled, the air thick with tension that he could feel prickling along the seams of his uniform.

"Lightning," Virgil growled across the radio, "is a bitch."

Scott gave a surprised bark of laughter. John seemed to share his amusement as he joined their transmission once more. "Your shields are running low," he warned.

Virgil muttered something uncomplimentary. "Oh really? Thank you for that, John, I definitely hadn't noticed."

"Hey," Gordon interjected. "Stop that. Sarcasm's my thing. Find your own."

Virgil glared at him with all the ferocity of a starved tiger. Gordon tried not to laugh, instead focussing on making the leap between the splintered edges of decking. The boards were wet and slippery with sea-salt and cascading rain, further waves attacking the sides of the ships viciously. He skidded, one hand coursing along the deck as his gloves activated.

Scott paused in his scan of one of the containers. "Nice of you to drop in."

Gordon, sprawled at his feet, in all his adult glory, stuck out his tongue in response.

Scott snorted. "Mature."

"I know, right?" Gordon propped himself up, let another wave crash against the ship, and finally clambered to his feet. The skies above had darkened even further and despite his apparent relaxed demeanour – this was mostly an act for Alan's sake – the increasingly frequent lightning strikes had him worried, especially with the high-pitched whine of Two's engines as the Thunderbird struggled to maintain altitude. "What's next?"

Scott jabbed a hand in the general direction of the fourth container. "I've completed Two and Three but Four, Five and Six are still unknown."

"What about One?"

Scott stared at him. "This is One."

"Right. I knew that."

Later, with all the passengers and crew safely loaded onto the Pod, Alan hesitated in the entrance. "Are you done with the containers?"

Gordon shook his head. "No. Still got one more."

"I'm coming to help."

"Alan, no." Scott's voice was cold with command. "Stay and help Virgil."

"He doesn't need any help!"

The Pod was ascending steadily towards Two. Gordon could glimpse it trembling in the face of the wind, rain spitting acid at the swinging door. If they were going to make it back to Thunderbird Two safely then they needed to close the hatch, but with Alan still at the fore-front, the safety protocols would prevent this from happening.

A flash of lightning sizzled in the water, waves of darkness shattering the universe around him. Gordon flung out a hand to try and grasp hold of something, but everything tilted violently to the left. Jagged pain tore along his leg and he hissed, scrabbling at the deck only to find himself plummeting towards the churning sea below. A hand seized his wrist, seemingly out of nowhere, and the world righted itself in a torrent of stinging spray and thunderous smoke from Two's engines. Gordon crawled further along the deck, Scott still holding him steady, and ducked into the relative shelter provided by the container.

Thunderbird Two had taken her final lightning strike. The pod swung wildly, and Alan leapt free of the clashing door, plunging out of sight into the mess of sea and salt on the far end of the ships. Gordon's breath caught in his throat and he darted forwards without thinking. Scott grabbed him, tugging him back to the shelter, voice low with warning in his ear.

"Gordon, stop, you're going to get yourself killed."

"It's Alan!"

"I know."

Two hung heavily in the air, engines shrieking. The radios were a sea of static and panicked shouts that Gordon wasn't sure weren't from himself. A flash of blue and red appeared at the far end of the ship, a grapple slicing through the air to connect with the nearest mangled wreck of a cabin.

"I can't hold her," Virgil gasped through the radio.

Scott didn't hesitate. "Get the passengers and crew to safety."

"What about you?"

"We'll secure the container and take Four."

Gordon stared at him. Scott shook his head, a silent warning. They both knew that getting all three of them back to Four safely would be near impossible, even with an aquanaut of Gordon's skill.

Virgil evidently didn't like the plan any better than Gordon did. "You'd better survive." It sounded more of a plea than it did a threat, but none of them called him out on it. Thunderbird Two listed slightly, before her VTOLs flared, scorching the churning ocean below until the metal rose and blistered, compensating for the engines. Gordon watched the green aircraft vanish into the clouds and suddenly felt very, very small.

Alan was limping towards them. Gordon would have sprinted to join him, but the pain in his leg was rising from a stinging sensation to a stabbing pain that threatened to leave him light-headed. He didn't dare look down to check.

"You're an idiot," Scott was shouting, all righteous fury mixed with concern and pure overprotectiveness. Alan flinched under the harsh rebukes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, shoulders hunched. For the first time in a while, Gordon was struck by how young his brother seemed. He struggled to his feet and dragged Alan into a hug.

"You may be an idiot, but you're a brave one."

Alan huffed a laugh into Gordon's shoulder. He clung on tightly, fingers digging into Gordon's back as he trembled. Gordon frowned, holding him close for a moment longer before giving in to his logical, rescuer side. They had a job to do.

Scott was watching. He tore his gaze away, something akin to sadness flitting across his face before it was replaced with the usual mask of rescues. Gordon forced himself not to dwell on it. He could always torture Scott for information later.

"We've got one more container to check."

"Getting back to Four won't be easy," Gordon commented, trying to coax the underlying fear in his voice into something more cheerful. "And we've got no backup."

Alan folded his arms across his chest. "Alright," he announced, fierce determination rigid in his shoulders and expression. "We can do this."

Gordon grinned. "Damn right we can. We're the Tracys."

As it turned out, none of the containers carried toxic waste or flammable goods. Gordon dropped his forehead to the cold metal in front of him, helmet knocking against the container with a sharp bang. He had a split second to react as a single yell of alarm, young in voice suggesting it was Alan, sounded only to be cut short.

Rogue waves. Gordon had come across them before. They were giants, monsters of the ocean and just as deadly. This one rose up and came crashing down in a torrent of cascading, all-powerful water that was inescapable. Gordon found himself flung from the ship and plunged into the dark sea surrounding the ship. The world spiralled around him, a blur of black and blue, warm scarlet drenching his fingertips and leg. Everything spun rapidly, tossing him backwards and forwards. He didn't know which way was up or down. Something collided heavily with his oxygen tank, knocking him sideways. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't call out. He couldn't breathe.

Gordon recognised himself panicking and forced himself to close his eyes, fighting back nausea. First rule of rescue, he reminded himself.

He reverted back to his training on instinct; mostly. For many people the list of priorities would begin with survive but Gordon always prided himself on not being a normal person, so his mind darted immediately to where are Scott and Alan, followed roughly by where's Thunderbird Four, accompanied by a vague questioning of Virgil's current whereabouts. He's sure that survival came in there somewhere, but it definitely didn't hit the top five.

He could name a few of his qualities on one hand and list the ones he liked about himself and the ones that he full-on hated, but the one thing he had always been and probably always would be was a fighter, so he fought through the laces of agony, pushing white-hot pain to the back of his mind and biting the inside of his cheek until he could taste copper and swam back towards the new flickering of light he gathered was lightning.

He burst free of the ocean to a world of chaos. The ships were listing dangerously in the water; the mangled wreck of the cruiser completely submerged and the container partially there. Cresting waves towered above him, sweeping him back under and forcing a crushing pressure down on his chest.

Gordon kicked out. "Scott! Alan!"

The radio squawked, but there was no response. Panic flooded through him, pulse racing and palms sweating under the layers of his gecko gloves. He fell back into instinctive swimming strokes, forcing his way towards the ships and struggling onto the hull of the container. More crimson dripped down his uniform, smeared across his boots and sash and there was a dull pain in his chest.

"John? Thunderbird Five, do you read me?"

There was no response. Gordon clung onto the pillar and scoured the deck for any signs of his missing siblings. Many of the containers had been swept overboard, and the deck had split in two, one half rising up, a jagged cliff threatening to crush the remaining half. There, amongst the drenched wood and metal, was a flash of blue. Gordon squinted, trying to get a better look. In the flash of the lightning he could just about glimpse deep red blurred through the water on his visor.

"Alan!"

A second wave reared up, plummeting down in a torrent of power. Gordon tightened his grip and focussed on breathing through the pain. Rain and wind howled about him, freezing cold and stinging icy tendrils through the shattered heater in his uniform. The sea cleared just enough for him to notice that the red and blue blur wasn't moving, and Gordon leapt across the deck, ignoring his training in favour of sprinting towards his brother.

Alan, surprisingly, seemed unharmed. He'd been knocked unconscious, and Gordon's scan revealed that the teenager may have a slight concussion, but he'd suffered no serious injuries. The blood drenching his gloves was not his own; this brought Gordon a wave of relief followed by an equally large wave of terror as the realisation dawned – if Alan wasn't injured, then Scott was.

"Alan?" He shook his brother's limp form, wincing in sympathy. "Come on, kiddo, I need your help here." He sank back onto his heels, muscles screaming in protest. "Alan. Wake up." Alan didn't move. He was pale under his uniform, pulse racing beneath Gordon's fingertips, a tell-tale sign of shock. Gordon cursed before he caught a glimpse of exactly why his brother had been so desperate to stay by the remaining container.

Scott, it appeared, had not been so lucky. The container had come crashing down, pinning him to the remaining deck, and a sticky covering of scarlet smothered the blue of his uniform. Gordon's wrist console was too badly damaged to run a second scan and gently probing with his hands was not enough to discover the source of the bleeding. His brother was deeply unconscious, and Gordon couldn't help but think that was a good thing given the extent of the unknown injury. The jagged edge of the container had shattered his helmet, fragments of glass scattered across the deck.

As far as Gordon could tell, there was no way he could get him out within the next five minutes. Which, given there was a second container teetering on the edge of the raised deck above them that would come crashing down on them all from only a single wave, was disastrous. He needed Alan awake.

Gordon sat back, slumping to the deck. Alan was sprawled to his right, Scott still unconscious in front of him. His radio was not working, smashed to smithereens, and the storm was only growing in fury. His eyes were burning with angry tears.

"Fuck."

He dug his nails into his palms as best he could through his gloves.

"You're not allowed to die."

Another wave hit the hulk of the boat.

"Either of you."

He choked back panic.

"Come on, Virgil told you to survive."

He couldn't tell if he was imagining things or if there was genuinely more blood streaked across the deck. Red was everywhere: the boards, Scott's uniform, Gordon's hands and legs, Alan's gloves, the container. Normally, Gordon liked red – Alan's sash, Thunderbird Three, strawberries, tropical birds on Tracy Island, but now he was wondering if he would ever be able to look at it and see those pleasant connotations ever again. He plastered a hand to his helmet. The ground swayed beneath him and it wasn't just due to the sea. Was he going to be sick?

A scream of metal against metal caught his attention. He glanced up and froze at the sight of the container swaying on the edge. He needed a plan, and fast.

"Right." His voice was strained, even to his own ears. "Okay. Think, Gordon, come on."

Scott's spare grapples were difficult to tug free of his sash, but there were enough for Gordon to form a harness above them. The somewhat hysterical part of his mind commented that he was like a spider, creating the web of rope, but as he sank back to the ground, legs trembling beneath him, he knew instantly that it wasn't strong enough. A third wave was rising up behind the ship, and with burning jolt in his chest he knew it was going to tip the container over the edge.

The problem as he could see it was that there was only enough time to save one of them. This was a fact, cold and hard as it may be, and he couldn't escape it. It was an unspoken fact between them – the family code of we save each other whatever it takes – somewhere over the years, that if it came down it, Alan was the one to rescue first. Gordon was no stranger to picking who lived and who died – he was ex-WASP and International Rescue called for some hard choices – but this was different – this was his family. How the hell was he supposed to choose between his brothers? The worst part was that he knew what Scott would want; if Scott was conscious right now then he would be shouting himself hoarse begging Gordon to choose Alan. If he went with that, Alan would never forgive him. This was a fact as much as the ships sinking was. Living with Alan hating him was unthinkable, something which burnt in his chest like acid, but it was more than that, because it would tear their family apart and Gordon knew all too well that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he became the catalyst for that. Cause and effect. God. He ducked another swinging beam and choked on the copper in his mouth. He was running out of time. He damned it all to hell, gathered Alan as close to his chest as possible and draped himself over them both as best he could, sheltering the shattered remains of Scott's helmet with his own.

The wave crashed down with the ferocity and power of a nuclear bomb. Icy water and darkness blanketed the universe in an eerie sense of peace for a split second before the world tilted up-down-left-right, accompanied by a flash of the brightest light Gordon had ever seen. It scorched into the backs of his irises, leaving spots in his vision when he blinked. The ship was groaning, but when he lifted his head amongst the screeches and shrieks of metal-against-metal, he found that the grapples had stayed. Gordon silently cheered and prayed thanks to someone up there who was looking out for him. They were straining to hold the weight of the second container, but they had bought him enough time to think of a new plan. Luckily, improvisation was his speciality.

The jolt of the wave colliding with the ship had shifted the first container. Gordon struggled to tug Scott free, the brief medical training in his mind wincing at the thought of the further damage he was probably adding to certain fractures.

"Where the fuck are you, Virgil?" He shouted at the clashing skies above. He couldn't hear a distinctive whine of engines above the storm and recalled their plan to head out in Four. Without his wrist-console working, he had no way of summoning his sub, or even tracking it.

Everything crashed sideways. Water shattered the air, darkness flooding an inky black all around him. Gordon reached out, seizing a handful of blue fabric without any clue as to who it was. The dim glow of his helmet revealed a red sash, and he clung onto Alan as tightly as possible, not pausing to think about the bruises he was no doubt inflicting on his brother's back as the world churned around them.

"Oh God, no, no, no…" He lashed out, searching the water desperately for any signs of silver. "Scott! No… Shit, Scott, where…" He choked on a panicked sob, white pain scorching through his leg. Alan was a dead-weight in his arms, pinning him down. In order to find Scott, he had to let go of Alan, but if he let go then he risked losing them both. "Dammit."

Lightning struck a chord in the ocean, bright light illuminated the sky. Gordon kicked out and swam for it. A large metal panel was floating on the surface, torn away from the cruise-liner, lined with wooden support beams. The ships had vanished. All that remained was dark waters, broiling waves crashing and rearing up, jagged jaws snapping at his heels. Gordon fumbled with the edges of the makeshift raft, silently praying that his gecko-gloves would hold on just that little bit longer as he struggled to pull Alan onto the wooden struts.

"Just…stay there, okay?" He whispered. Alan lay on his back on the raft, chest rising and falling rhythmically. He looked almost peaceful. If Gordon hadn't known better, then he could almost have guessed that his brother was asleep. He forced himself to dive back into the waters, ignoring the trembling exhaustion in every inch of his body. He knew the risks of pushing himself past his limit, but there was no other choice.

Silver flashed somewhere deep down. Gordon made a beeline for it, fighting against the currents and reaching out so that his muscles shrieked in protest. His fingers felt numb in his gloves, skidding helplessly over Scott's suit until he was able to seize hold of the sash, looping an arm around his brother's waist and another about his shoulders and pulling him closer. It had been less than a minute since they'd been thrown from the ship, but Gordon had no way of telling if Scott had breathed in any of the water until they made it to the raft.

Luck was on his side as the raft was bobbing along not too far away. Gordon struck out for it, clinging onto Scott and gripping the cold metal tightly. He was now faced with a new problem – actually getting Scott onto the raft. He heaved himself higher onto the panel, muscles straining to hold their combined weight, and slid back into the water with a splash.

"Not now," he whispered, scarcely able to keep himself from crying with frustration. "Please, we're so close, just…please…"

A hand landed on his wrist. Gordon blinked and stared up into the pale face looking down at him. Alan's pupils were blown wide and he was pale, freckles stark against his skin, but his jaw was clenched, determination burning in his eyes. He didn't speak, but reached out further, grabbing hold of Scott's sash and helping to drag the pilot fully onto the raft.

Gordon sank back, closing his eyes. He'd done it. They were safe.

"Gordo." Alan pawed at his helmet. Red fingerprints scattered across the visor. Gordon stared at them incomprehensibly. "You've got to get on too. Come on." His voice was tight with pain.

"Can't."

"Bullshit."

Gordon bit down on his lip. Copper filled his mouth again, raw and harsh, but jolting him back into awareness. Alan was staring at him pleadingly.

"Please, Gordy."

Gordon seized the offered hand and forced himself onto the raft. He didn't think he could move a muscle even if he had to now. He was on his back, the metal digging uncomfortably into his spine. Above him, the skies appeared to be lightening, brighter clouds flitting along the edges of dark bulks. Thunder was quiet, pulses of tension through the air less tangible.

"I did it," he whispered. Something hot trickled over his cheeks. He wondered briefly if he was crying. Alan's arm landed across his chest as his brother flopped down across the raft. The sea was rough and shook them from side to side, but they didn't capsize. Too exhausted to do anything else, Gordon let the waves lull him into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter Two

The sounds of waves crashing in the distance filtered through the air. Smaller ripples lapped at the shoreline, cool water washing over his feet and pooling between his toes. Sand was scratchy against his cheek and he flung a hand up only to find his fingers also encased in the tiny grains of shell and rock. A stray wave crept up the beach and patted at his face and chest. He gave a murmur of protest, turning his head away only to breathe in a lungful of sand and bolted upright, coughing and spluttering his way back to full awareness.

For a split second, Gordon thought he'd fallen asleep on the South Beach on Tracy Island after a swim again; all he could see were golden sands and crystal seas, with a splash of green foliage in the edges of his peripheral vision. Then his memories came crashing back to him in a rush that left him shivering despite the heat.

He sat up and took a moment to come to his senses. One of his boots was missing and he caught sight of it further along the beach - a splodge of blue against yellow sand – and when he lifted a hand to probe the throbbing pain at the back of his head, he discovered that his helmet was missing. It was nestled in a dip in the sand a few metres to his right, but didn't seem to have suffered any damage, suggesting that either he'd removed it himself without realising, or one of his brothers had woken up.

His uniform was torn up, all scraps of bedraggled blue fabric. Sand was plastered across any bare skin, clinging to the damp patches where the sea had caught him. Gordon stretched, wincing as his back clicked and pain blossomed along his leg. He needed to take stock of his injuries but in order to do that he was going to have to peel off his uniform, and that wasn't fun on the best of days.

Footsteps crunched in the sand, heavy, suggesting that their owner was in shoes, but too light for them to be of a grown man. Gordon twisted, squinting, and sure enough, Alan appeared moments later. His hair was a darker blond than usual, plastered to his forehead with sea water, colourful bruises decorating his side where he'd tugged his uniform down to his waist. There were no serious injuries to be spotted, and even with his limited medical training, Gordon knew the discolourations were light enough to not be hiding anything more dangerous.

"Gordon!" Alan bounded along the beach towards him, skidding to a halt and spraying sand in his brother's lap. Gordon sneezed and wiped sand away from his face. "You're awake."

Ordinarily Gordon would have paused to check how Alan was coping, but this was by no means a normal situation and the memories of the previous night - dragging his brother clear of the containers - were still ringing like a nightmare in his head. He fixed Alan with a searching look. "Where's Scott?"

Alan paled. "Uh…further up the beach. I tried to drag him into the shade, but Gordy…he doesn't look too good."

Gordon could have predicted that. "Alright," he announced as brightly as he could manage. Alan seemed to perk up anyway, which was what he'd been aiming for. "Let's get going. Check injuries, figure out where we are and all that."

Alan tilted his head to the side like a lost puppy. "It's like survival training," he commented.

"It's what survival training was meant for," Gordon muttered, struggling to reach his feet. His hands sunk into the sand and the single boot failed to provide enough purchase, especially when his other leg gave out under his weight. He plunged back towards the floor with a yelp, only to have Alan grab him, supporting him with one arm around his shoulders.

"What's with your leg?"

Gordon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Not sure," he admitted. "But Scott's bound to be in worse shape than I am."

It wasn't often that Gordon found himself thrown into the role of the reassuring adult, especially given he was sent on the majority of rescues with a co-pilot, but he was close enough with Alan to know his brother's tells and right now Alan was freaking out, whether the teen was prepared to admit it or not.

"How long have you been awake?"

Alan frowned. "No idea. It was early morning, and now the sun's overhead, so about five hours, give or take?" He fiddled with the loose fabric of his suit, trailing sea water behind him as he led the way up the beach. He struck a very sorrowful character and Gordon would ordinarily have taken the time to draw him out of whatever spiral he'd fallen into, but there was no time.

Alan had done well. The thick line of foliage surrounding the beach was filled with protruding palm trees, broad fronds casting a quilt of shade. The sand was cooler here, nothing like the baking heat that Gordon had woken up to, somewhat damp to touch, but still very humid. Scott was sprawled across the ground on his back, shattered remains of his helmet carefully removed, and the red fabric of Alan's sash folded up into a makeshift pillow. Gordon fought back a smile at the sight.

"Nice work."

Alan shuffled his feet awkwardly. "I just figured…you know…possible head injury, so it could provide extra support."

"Yeah, you did well." Gordon sank to his knees, unable to help the pained hiss that escaped between clenched teeth as the movement pulled at his leg. Alan scrambled to the ground next to him, hands hovering uncertainly as he wondered whether his help would be accepted or not.

"Okay, stop," he finally burst out. Gordon stared at him, somewhat incredulous. "You're obviously hurt, and you need to help yourself before you can help Scott. That's one of the first rules of rescues."

Gordon banished the little voice that commented rules are made to be broken to the back of his mind and sighed heavily. "Alright." Alan had a point and he couldn't deny it.

It was around the hottest point of the day and Gordon tried to persuade himself that taking off the uniform would be worth it, if only so that he could appreciate the breeze coming off the sea. His suit was designed to repel water like a duck's feathers, but the damage it had suffered during the rescue meant that the protective layers had peeled away leaving the remaining fabric plastered to his skin.

"Maybe just yank it off like a plaster?" Alan suggested. "Get it over and done with."

Gordon glared at him. He was fully aware that this was an unfair reaction to what was a perfectly reasonable suggestion, but he was aching and already tired despite sleeping for an unknown period of time, so he felt it was fairly justified. Besides, Alan's spacesuit was a lot easier to remove, with the plated armour around the shoulders and chest making it near impossible to fuse with any injuries that it had failed to prevent in the first place.

Alan took a couple of steps backwards. "Right. Sorry."

Great. Now he felt bad. "Just…give me a moment."

He took Alan's advice and it worked – mostly. There was a variety of smaller cuts and bruises that he hadn't noticed previously, and the frayed edges of his suit clung to the edges of damaged skin with dried blood that pulled and tugged. Gordon yanked it free with a hiss, struggling free of the uniform as far as his waist and mourning the destruction of his t-shirt underneath. It was one of the rare occasions that he hadn't been wearing his Hawaiian shirt and he counted his blessings that it still remained in all its blazing glory back on Tracy Island. His t-shirt, however, was now a muddy red where it had once been a pale yellow, and he tore it free, wondering how well it would work as a temporary bandage.

Alan had knelt by his side. His shirt, it would appear, had not been damaged beyond a few stray holes along the hem that may have been there to begin with and was currently being used as a sunshield and as a cloth to mop sweat away from his forehead. The humidity on Tracy Island was very different to this dry heat that threatened to dry the very tears from his eyes. He tentatively reached out for Gordon's discarded shirt and began separating the fabric into strips – they would definitely require a thorough soaking in the sea before any use in a medical capacity, but they would work well as an improvisation – portable med-kits were among the few things Brains hadn't installed into their uniforms – yet – it was only a matter of time.

"Well that was not fun." Gordon flopped back against the sand, taking a moment to catch his breath. His leg was throbbing again, a dull pain that was increasing with every thought he paid to it, and he was horribly aware that he was going to have to drag his uniform free of the offending limb entirely in order to gain a closer inspection. That, he decided in that very instant, was something he was going to need Alan's help with. "God, couldn't Brains design these things so they're easier to take off? It's easier to get out of a bodycon-dress than this." He waved a finger at Alan as his brother opened his mouth to question him. "Don't ask." He shuddered. "My eighteenth was terrifying and I'm never speaking of it again."

"I really don't want to know." Alan was quiet for a moment. "Okay, I lied. Please tell me. I'll literally beg you."

"No." Gordon distracted him before he could be questioned any further. When Alan got a hold of a topic, he rarely let it go and it often led to torture, Tracy style. "You gonna help me get this off, or what?"

"Uh, sure." Alan peered closer. "Yeesh. That's gotta hurt."

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed. Not like it's fucking attached to me or anything."

"I don't know. Sometimes when something hurts really bad, the brain shuts down all sensations in that place."

"Who told you that?"

"The internet."

"That explains that then."

Alan looked genuinely hurt for a moment before he banished the expression in place of an optimistic smile. He settled his hands in his lap, sat cross-legged with his boots trailing patterns in the sand and the sad pile of reddish-yellow fabric piled across his knees like a storm-swept flag. His medical training was probably around the same level as Gordon's at this point; the kid was a nerd however much he tried to deny it and Gordon could recall multiple occasions on which he'd found his brother surrounded by a pile of Virgil's old med-school books, some of the larger chronicles almost swamping him. Given this it was rare for Alan to be entirely wrong about something, which just spoke volumes about his true state. Gordon wondered which late night Wikipedia tirade had led his brother down that particular rabbit-hole.

"Here." Alan tore another piece of the shirt free and bundled it up, holding it out like a peace offering. Gordon stared at it dubiously. "Bite down on it. We don't know how badly this is gonna hurt."

It was a fair point. "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to use a belt, or a piece of bark or something."

Alan stared at him in a vague look of my brother is a fucking idiot someone help me mixed with the classic why am I stuck on a deserted island with Gordon of all people. "Well do you have a belt?"

"Obviously not."

"There you go then." He flicked at a stray twig. "Feel free to make yourself sick by using a random piece of wood from one of the trees though."

Gordon made grabby hands for one.

"What?" Alan looked horrified. "No, I was kidding, Jesus Gordon, they could be poisonous."

Gordon threw his head back and positively cackled. It was scarily similar to the elderly woman who had lived in the house down their road when they were kids – she hadn't left her living-room in five years and had a single black cat so they had all assumed she was a witch, although it had later transpired that John kept her company and read her books every Saturday, so perhaps she hadn't been so terrifying after all.

"Okay," Alan began, still appearing mildly horrified, "I'm pretty sure you're suffering from blood loss, so let's get this over and done with."

"Great plan." Gordon seized the t-shirt scrap. "I'll just…sort of wait around then?"

"Are you scared?"

"Scared? No. Apprehensive and disliking pain…now that's more accurate."

"It'll be fine."

"For you or for me?"

Alan paused. "Well," he admitted, "probably more for me, but you'll definitely feel better once we've cleaned up whatever injury you're hiding under there." He frowned. "Hang on, are you distracting me?"

Gordon stared up at the palm fronds that waved so impossibly high above him; anything to avoid meeting Alan's accusing gaze. "Possibly."

"You can't procrastinate dealing with an injury."

"Watch me."

"No thanks." Alan flapped a hand in his face. "Shove that in your mouth already, would you?"

A smirk slowly slid onto Gordon's features. "Damn," he began, "I didn't think you were-"

Alan practically snarled. "Don't finish that sentence. We don't have time for this right now."

"One joke. Please. You owe me this before you possibly maim me forever."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Spoil sport." Gordon bit down on the fabric, maintaining an annoyed glare mixed with glimmers of amusement. Alan hesitated, hands hovering above the blood-stained suit as he considered his next move. It was unlike Gordon to give up so easily, which spoke volumes about how much pain the unknown injury was actually causing, and Alan knew his brother well enough to notice his tells. There was a mumbled remark from behind the shirt scrap that sounded roughly like get on with it then, only with a few more expletives added in for good measure. Alan gripped the edges of the suit, around the corners of the seam where it would part more easily and pulled.

Two things happened at once. One, Alan got a clear view of the injury as the suit came away in his hands. Two, Gordon was greeted with a new white-hot string of pain slicing from just below his knee up to his thigh. He would have talked – or sworn – through it, but his mouth was a little preoccupied with biting down on the bundled fabric, so that was out of the question. He thumped his head back against the sand, screwing his eyes shut as tightly as possible, breathing through the waves as best he could.

"I'm sorry, sorry," Alan was saying repeatedly, brows drawn in tight concern. He leant forwards, figure blocking out the sun and throwing a merciful shadow over his brother. "It's done, I'm sorry, we're good." He gripped Gordon's shoulder and tightened his hold until the aquanaut looked at him. "Are you okay?"

Gordon spat out the cloth. "That," he groaned, "was not something I want to repeat, ever. Very bad experience. One out of ten stars on Yelp."

Alan sank back onto his heels, relief evident in the somewhat panicked smile. He looked mildly hysterical. "Not on your bucket list for the future then?"

Gordon gave a choked laugh. "Nope. Give me swimming with sharks any day."

They took a minute to gather their thoughts. For Gordon this consisted of maintaining a white-knuckle grip on the pile of ruined t-shirt by his side and panting heavily, whilst for Alan it was more of a chance to stare worriedly at both his brothers and draw little circles in the sand to give his hands something to do. The respite didn't last long, and Gordon forced himself to sit up, mentally running a check list from years of survival courses reaching as far back as Scouts – one of the rare camps he'd been allowed to go on that occurred before he'd been kicked out for filling the leader's sock drawer with ants and then setting the cabin on fire although the fire had, surprisingly, been accidental. With this list safely secured in his head, he forced himself to examine his leg.

As far as injuries went, he'd had worse. Then again, he'd also broken his back, so that wasn't saying much. A deep laceration scoured from the top of his calf to the mid-point of his thigh, still bleeding sluggishly. The edges were raw and jagged, suggesting that it had been caused by a piece of tangled metal back on the ship and when Gordon tried to lift his leg a new shot of pain burnt around the area. It was deep enough that he ideally needed stiches, but not so deep that he was imminently about to bleed out, which he counted as a win. The tricky part would be keeping it free of infection until Virgil and John could find them, which given he needed to be able to move around, was going to be a challenge.

Alan peered closer over his shoulder. Gordon knocked him back and gently probed at the edges of the cut, wincing as pain scorched along damaged muscle.

"It doesn't look that bad?" Alan suggested, voice high with forced optimism.

Gordon grimaced. "It's gonna leave a scar."

"So? Everyone digs scars."

"Digs? What is this - some old western?"

"We've been shipwrecked, it's a completely different genre. More like Castaway. Can we find a rugby ball somewhere?" Alan was rambling which just served to show that the cut was worse than either of them were admitting. Gordon had to lighten the mood.

"Maybe you're right," he commented. "The guys and girls will probably think I'm some sort of hero."

"Technically," Alan murmured, very quietly, "you are."

Gordon hid his smile. "I need to get this cleaned up and bandaged, so you're going to have to go and wash those out in the sea." He gestured to the ruined shirt and uniform.

"What about you?"

His gaze flickered to the prone blue-clad form to his right. "I'm gonna play doctor."

Alan hesitated, unsure as to whether it was the appropriate time to make a joke or not before settling on the fact that this was Gordon and the guy used humour as a shield even at the worst moments. "Try not to kill him."

"No promises," Gordon quipped without thinking. Now, staring at Scott with a vague sensation of panic crawling up his throat and constricting his chest like ants, he regretted it. "Go wash those, Al. I'll figure out a few things here."

This also gave him the chance to have a mild freak out without scaring Alan at the same time, so when his brother disappeared down the beach Gordon took the chance to collapse onto his back with a strangled scream muffled by one hand. His leg, apparently, also took this a sign to start shrieking in its own right, namely with pain, so he sprawled over the sand trying not to full on whimper like an injured dog for a few minutes.

"Hey Scotty," he mumbled, face pressed into the mixture of dried leaves and pebbles as though the ground would hold the secrets of the universe. "I could really do with a hand. Feel like waking up any time soon?"

Silence followed. Gordon crawled closer and settled down onto his knees as best he could, injured limb stretched out behind him to prevent getting grit into the wound. "Don't mind me," he said, coaxing a certain silver sash free of the rest of the suit. "I'm just your doctor for the day. Virgil is unavailable. Probably having a drink with one of those lil' umbrellas by the pool. I bet John's come down for the party as well." This was entirely inaccurate, and he knew it. It was concerning him that it had been so long since their disappearance, yet no-one had come looking. "Where d'you think they are, eh Scott?" He cast a glance up at the skies. "I reckon whatever knocked the radar offline before is blocking the scanners on Five now. Which means someone's doing it, and I bet it's our old friends the Chaos Crew." He trailed off, catching sight of the dangerously deep laceration that the sash had previously been hiding. "Oh fuck."

It took a lot to make Gordon panic, but when he did it usually resulted in him hiding from the world for at least twenty-four hours until whichever one of his brothers had drawn the short straw would venture into his room – otherwise known as the lair – and coax him out; Grandma was especially good at this, and Virgil had managed to get it down to a fine art. Currently, this was not an option – for starters, Alan was very much conscious and scared in his own right, and secondly… well, Gordon supposed he still had a job to do, didn't he?

He forced the wave of panic back down and pressed his hands to his knees until they had stopped shaking and had resorted to more of a faint trembling.

"That's uh…that's a lot of blood." He swallowed past the rising nausea. Normal people out on rescue with serious injuries? Fine, he could cope with that, quite well dare he say, but his own brother? That was different. He was scared. "Training...training says… I have no idea what training says about this. Virgil's the field medic, not me." He raised a quivering hand and tugged at his hair until the dull pain grounded him. "Fuck. Okay. I can fix this. Definitely."

He stole a glance over his shoulder. Alan was still down by the shore, a faint yelp sounding as a wave splashed up against his boots, water dripping from his chin and hair. A distant muttering was just about audible, fabric dangling from his outstretched arms. Gordon relaxed – at least he still had a few minutes to figure out a plan before Alan returned.

"Cool, cool, cool, cool. Everything is fine." He took a deep breath. "Right. What exactly have you gone and done to yourself?"

It took him a good few minutes to take stock of the injuries. Alan was making his way back, apparently struggling not to trip over his own feet as the sand gave way under his boots, if the mumbled insults directed towards the beach were anything to go by.

"That took way longer than it should have done," Alan announced by way of greeting. "I mean, how many waves can there be in five minutes?"

Gordon gave a mumbled sound that could have meant anything from 'no idea' to 'the precise average is actually eighteen'. Of course, Gordon was not actually listening, so it meant neither of these things and then a little less. Alan persevered anyway. He'd never gotten out of that habit of rambling when he was nervous, and he was not about to break it now.

"I really hope you didn't like this shirt, because there's no saving it now. It's as dead as that spider Scott stamped on a couple of weeks ago because Virgil was scared of it, which is insane, because Virg is like…a bear, or something, and a spider's a speck. But he was on the counter all right, and begged Scott to get rid of it, so he stamped on it and then Virgil was upset because 'it's still a living creature Scott!' and…"

"As fascinating as that story is," Gordon drawled with all the sarcasm of older brothers across the world, "I could do with some help."

"Oh." Alan blinked and then flushed. "Right. Sorry." The shreds of damp t-shirt were hanging from his arms in a cruel mimic of stained wings and he nearly dropped them all when Gordon shoved a fairly flat length of branch into his hands. "A little warning would be nice," he grumbled, stumbling back to catch his balance.

"I believe in learning on the job."

"That's terrible. Imagine throwing someone like Brandon in on a rescue and letting them learn as they go."

This was the wrong thing to say. Gordon was deep in his International Rescue mode, but he couldn't help the snigger that escaped him at that particular mental image.

"What is this, anyway?"

Gordon reached out for the branch again. "Makeshift splint."

"Fracture?"

"Couple. All in the same leg, which I guess you could count as a bonus."

Alan peered closer. "That looks pretty nasty."

Gordon tracked his eyes to the gash streaked across the pilot's chest. "Yeah." He clenched his hands into fists to hide the trembling. "But I can fix it."

"Just don't use the sea-water on a cut that deep."

Gordon shot him a questioning look.

"There's a reef quite close to the shoreline, so there's a higher chance of bacteria. It'll be okay for you, because it's a flesh wound and there's barely any muscle damage, but that looks…well, it's deep and you don't want to risk getting further bacteria into his bloodstream, especially given he was exposed to possibly polluted water already when the ships sank." Alan avoided his gaze. He was fiddling with the edge of his uniform again. "So. You know. We should probably find a fresh water source and find a way to clean it – there'd be less of a risk of infection."

Gordon was silent. "I'm sorry," he spoke eventually.

"Why?"

"For being a jerk yesterday. That was actually useful, so thanks."

Alan brightened. "No problem. We're cool. If you want…I mean, I read a book and watched one of Virgil's old med tutorials, so I could bandage your leg up pretty well. If we can find a fresh water source then that would be better than using the sea water too, even if it is a shallower wound." He settled the bandages delicately over a large shrub protruding from the foliage. "If we're going to go looking then we should cover it first anyway."

"Go ahead." Gordon was paying him the minimum attention necessary; instead he focussed upon setting the makeshift splint. It wasn't as straight as he would like, but he only had a half-broken branch to work with, so he'd done the best he could. It should provide enough support – he hoped.

Other than the smaller cuts and bruises that really paled in comparison with the fractures and the deep laceration, Gordon was out of options. The only thing he could do now would be to find a clean water source, but while Scott was still unconscious, his temperature was higher than Gordon would like – leaving him alone was not a good idea in any universe. He equally didn't like the plan that involved sending Alan out alone to scout out an entirely unknown island. He flexed his muscle, tensing his leg and was pleased to find that with the added support of the bandages he was just about able to put his weight on it. Of course, walking for any extended period of time and engaging in unnecessary exertion was entirely inadvisable, but then again Gordon was a law unto himself and he prided himself on this fact, so he staggered to his feet anyway.

"I'm gonna scout out the island for a bit," he announced. "Try and find some fresh water and food if there is any."

"Is that a good idea?"

"Definitely not, but I'm doing it anyway."

Alan had a stubborn gleam in his eyes and was evidently about to dig in his heels about the matter, refusal on the tip of his tongue, so Gordon panicked and landed on the one subject that was sure to have his brother quietly backing down.

"Someone has to stay and look after Scott, I think he's running a fever." Alan still didn't look entirely convinced. Gordon fumbled for a further excuse. "You're obviously better at the entire medical thing than I am, so if he gets worse then I'd rather you were here."

Alan's eyes grew wide. "You reckon that might happen?"

Oh God. Gordon inwardly cringed. He truly was the worst. "I don't know."

Alan fell silent, his gaze flickering across to Scott. He shuffled a little closer, one hand resting on his brother's wrist so that he could monitor his pulse. "Alright." His voice wavered a little. "Don't do anything dumb."

"It's me," Gordon called back as he limped away. "When have I ever done anything dumb?"

This, in hindsight, probably wasn't the most reassuring thing to say.


	3. Chapter Three

There are moments in life when you recognise that you're in a very bad situation, but you continue to try and battle through it with a smile anyway, even when everyone else stares at you and thinks wow what an idiot. Gordon had experienced this many times in the past – too many times, his family would say – and he was currently enjoying it again – enjoying being a loose term. The point was, Gordon was coming to the slow but sure realisation that this was a very small island in the middle of nowhere and no-one was coming to save them any time soon.

It took him less than ten minutes to battle through the foliage, which, as it transpired, was nothing like the forest he had pictured it to be; it was more of a scruff of green on the face of the island that barely stood a quarter of a mile wide – the forest that was, not the island – that stretched to an entire mile. He stumbled onto the opposite beach to be met with a thin blue line – the horizon was completely empty. There were no boats or planes to be seen. The only life Gordon had seen other than the plants was a stray lizard and the chorus of tropical birds.

It could be argued that the gravity of the situation hadn't hit him until this moment. With Alan back on the far side of the island, waiting patiently with Scott, it was very easy to imagine that Gordon was the only human for a hundred miles. All that remained was the sea and the sky and a scrap of golden beach in between.

He sank to his knees, sand spilling over his hands and sticking to the makeshift bandage. "Shit," he muttered, staring up at a sky that stood void of the sight or sound of a certain green Thunderbird. "We are so screwed."

Up until this moment he hadn't considered the possibility that they wouldn't be found. Thunderbird Five was one of the most technologically advanced pieces of equipment in the world and was a marvel in its own right – Brains was a certified genius and John was also terrifyingly intelligent, so Gordon had simply assumed that Thunderbird Two or even One would appear on the shore within hours of their disappearance. Now he was realising in a rush of horror that they may well have been carried miles away from the original rescue site and, to make matters worse, the fact they hadn't been found proved the theory that someone or something was blocking all signals and scans in the area.

They had nothing. No ration bars, no bottles of water, no flares. Hell, Gordon didn't even have his IR uniform with his specialised diving gear anymore. Alan's suit was the most intact, but it was designed for space and with the cloaking of the area it would do little good. Scott's grapples were depleted down to the final pack and besides, it was Virgil with the toolbelt.

He stared at the sea, suddenly feeling very lonely.

"I just want to go home."

A wave lapped at the shore.

"Is that too much to ask for?"

The horizon remained obstinately empty. The Thunderbirds had always made the world seem very small, but now Gordon realised what it felt like to be an ant amongst the universe.

"Is there anybody out there?" His voice rose to an angry shout, cracking half-way through. "John? EOS can get through these shields, whatever they are, surely? I mean…she's a literal AI. She's insane. We can't be stuck here. You can't…" He pressed his palms to his eyes. "Fuck. This is…"

A songbird with red and black plumage perched on a piece of driftwood and studied him with one beady eye. Its little chest puffed out as it sang loudly. Gordon felt like crying.

"No, you guys…if you can hear me... even if you can't, you've got to find a way, because I can't do this. Scott needs a hospital and if you don't find us then he's gonna… and Alan will…" He dug his nails into his palms. The paralysing fear he'd repressed during the sinking of the ships was back with a vengeance. "Oh my god." He was breathing too quickly, and he knew it. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to care. "No-one's coming. It's just us."

There's only one thing worse than watching the people you care about suffer, and it's the sense of helplessness that comes with it.

Gordon surged to his feet. He knew fully well that he looked like a madman, stumbling about and waving his fists at the horizon, but he would gladly accept the embarrassment if only it meant that there was someone else out there.

"Fuck you!" He screamed at the sky. "This isn't supposed to happen."

The sky, inevitably, did not reply.

-

Alan was sprawled on the sand next to Scott when Gordon returned. He was flat on his back, staring up at the sky and was uncharacteristically silent. He was still clinging onto Scott's wrist tightly, as though he was afraid that if he let go, he would lose his brother entirely. There was a dark, nauseating part in the back of Gordon's mind that suspected he was right.

"Hey."

Alan sat up at his quiet greeting. "Hey," he replied, pausing as he caught sight of Gordon's face. It was probably a wise move on his part not to mention the still visible tear-tracks and redness to his brother's eyes. "Find anything?"

Gordon took a deep breath. "No." He sat down heavily next to his brother. "No, I didn't."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"There's no-one out there, is there?"

"I don't think so."

"John, Virgil, Kayo, Brains… even Grandma…they're not coming." This was more a statement than it was a question.

"No."

"Oh."

Alan was many things, but naïve was not one of them. He couldn't look at either of his brothers, instead drawing his knees close to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his chin on the top. His eyes were glistening unnaturally bright in the sunlight. He sniffed, tried to hide it, and then sniffed again.

"Shit." Gordon normally didn't swear that much – he found far too much joy in witnessing Virgil's reactions to sudden exclamations of phrases such as snickerdoodle for that – but the past twenty-four hours were the exception. "I'm sorry Alan."

"Why?" Alan's words were sharp, spoken quickly as though to keep his voice from shaking. This was probably a very real reason. "It's not your fault."

"I should have done more. Found a way to call Virg back."

"Gordon, you saved us."

"And for what?" He gestured wildly at the empty beach.

Alan fell quiet. "I don't know."

"You shouldn't be here."

"None of us should."

"No, but Al, you really shouldn't be. You're sixteen for fuck's sake. You've got college and bad decisions about nights out and your whole damn life ahead of you."

There was a wet laugh. "What, and you haven't?" A pause, then an achingly familiar retort: "Three years. Are you seriously telling me that just because you turned twenty last month you've experienced everything the universe has to offer?"

"I don't know, I've done the whole waking up surrounded by shots and a pair of high-heels in my best friend's bed and having to awkwardly call Scott to come pick me up at two in the morning. I'd say I'm pretty close. Haven't swum with sharks yet though. That's kind of a downer."

Alan was shaking his head. "Jesus," he choked through a hysterical laugh. "You're insane."

"So I've been told. Numerous times, by pretty much everyone."

They exchanged an amused look, tinged by unspoken fear. Gordon shuffled closer so that their shoulders brushed and reached out, laying a hand on Scott's knee, taking care to choose the un-injured leg. All was silent once again.

"He pushed me out of the way." Alan suddenly spoke up. His voice was very small. "That's how he got trapped under the container. Did you know that?"

Gordon shook his head. If he was honest, then he wasn't in the least bit surprised. It was just the stupidly selfless overprotective sort of act that he'd come to expect from his big brother.

"It's supposed to be me."

"Don't."

"But it is. I'm supposed to be laying there, not him."

"Please don't, Al."

Alan buried his face in his arms. He was trembling ever so slightly. "What if he dies?"

"Don't be dumb," Gordon muttered. "He's not going to die."

"How do you know?"

"Because…he's Scott." Yes, Gordon thought to himself sarcastically, very convincing. God, he was a mess.

Alan wasn't stupid. He knew all too well that Gordon was grasping at straws, but there was something about the effort that made it slightly comforting anyway.

"I guess we're going to have to risk the sea water," Gordon said, staring at the sea as though it had personally wronged him. In a way it sort of had.

Alan frowned. "No." He sat up, suddenly alert despite the pounding headache from dehydration that was starting to creep in at his temples. "No, there's got to be a fresh water source somewhere because how else would the island sustain all the plants?"

Gordon decided to blame his lack of realisation of this fact on his mild blood loss and general state of unresolved panic. "I didn't get a proper look," he admitted. "I was more focussed on figuring out if there was anything on the other side."

"Maybe there's a spring at the centre," Alan thought aloud. "It would make sense. I'll go look."

"Later."

Alan looked at him, surprise written across his face. Gordon, only just realising that he had spoken, tried to backtrack and gave up halfway through.

"Just…can we take a minute?"

"We need water."

"I know."

"I should go. Your leg is pretty wrecked, and you need to rest it."

"Alan, just wait."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know what's out there and I don't want to lose you too!"

Alan's confused look softened. "I'll be okay." He hesitated, catching sight of the unguarded fear that Gordon was trying so desperately to hide. "But I'll wait a few more minutes. Y'know. Just in case Scott wakes up or something." It was a poor excuse, even for him, but Gordon appreciated it anyway.

It was growing cooler now that the sun had passed its midpoint, and a light breeze had formed, dancing through the trees and encroaching bushes. Leaves rustled a symphony in their wake, tiny white blossoms scattered across the beach as they were caught by the wind. The temperature was much more manageable, more of local wildlife venturing out now that they were less likely to scorch their bellies and, in some cases, wings. A lizard was sunbathing on a rock, tongue darting out to snag a stray fly that scuttled past.

"There are turtles somewhere."

Alan looked up. His attention had been caught by the lizard. "Huh?"

"There are turtles." Gordon pointed to the distinctive track marks that led from a mound of softer sand down to the shoreline. "See? They're probably nesting."

"Bit early, isn't it?"

"Scouting for nest sites then."

Alan grinned. There was something magical about the idea of seeing such an ancient and beautiful creature in its natural habitat and he couldn't help the little of thrill of excitement, despite their situation. It was a nice reprieve – having something good to anticipate.

"Might see some tonight."

Gordon hummed. "Probably."

They returned their attention to the lizard. There was an unspoken thought in the air that they were waiting for something, but neither of them was entirely sure as to what. Alan was in the process of drifting into a deeper slumber, having been dozing in the warmth of the sun for the past half-hour that they had been sitting in silence – he'd achieved the ultimate position for basking in the rays – just beyond the treeline but not so far that he was burnt on the heat-drenched sands. Gordon's voice startled both him and the lizard, which opened one eye accusingly.

"Wait," Gordon bolted upright. "What happened to your watch?"

Alan stared at him, uncomprehending at first. Then he smacked a hand to his forehead and flopped back against the sand again, groaning. "We're such idiots."

"Excuse me."

"You forgot too!"

"It's your watch."

"But you're…."

"I'm what?"

Alan thought about it. "Older," he finished lamely.

Gordon was having none of this, but there were more important things at hand. He reached across, grabbing at his brother's uniform. Alan twisted out of reach, smacking at Gordon's hands and wriggling away.

"I can do it," he protested.

Gordon crossed his arms with a huff. "Go on then."

Alan unravelled his suit, grimacing at the grains of sand that clung to his skin with the motion. His uniform had been hanging about his waist for the majority of the day and had collected most of the beach, or so it seemed. There was even a little white shell caught up in there. He fumbled with the sleeves, turning them the right way out to reach his wrist-console. Beyond a few scratches that littered the surface, it seemed to be in working condition, illuminating under his touch in a matter of seconds.

"Try sending a signal to Five."

Alan glared at Gordon. "Yeah, no shit."

"Just saying."

"Well don't." He sighed. "I can do this, okay?"

The watch came back with a flashing alert of error. Alan growled and swiped the information into a projected hologram so that they could both see.

"So, the bad news is that I can't get a signal to…well, anyone."

"And the good news?"

"There isn't any."

Gordon was torn between screaming with frustration and throwing himself into the sea to swim it off, because honestly, this was getting ridiculous. It was almost as though the universe didn't want them to be found. He glared at the waves. Maybe this was all karma to serve him right for all the ill-timed pranks he'd pulled over the years.

"I can try and figure out what's blocking it though. Trace it back to the source, maybe."

Gordon leant forwards. "Try it."

The hologram spun beneath Alan's fingers, twisting and turning to release a new spring of information, including an illuminated symbol of very familiar colours.

"Is that…?"

"Chaos Crew," Gordon confirmed grimly. "They're back."

The lizard skittered away. Alan imagined tumbleweed blowing across the beach and was struck with a hysterical need to laugh. "Now what?"

Gordon had his plotting face on. "They can't be too far from here for their blocking bubble to work."

"Is that the technical term?"

"What – blocking bubble?"

"Yeah."

"You know it isn't, so shut up and go with it."

"Fair enough."

Alan was trying his best not to laugh. He also happened to not be doing a very good job of it.

"You know, if we could steal the Chaos Cruiser, then we could shut down whatever signal jammer they've put in place."

Alan looked mildly concerned at that. "How? They'd see us coming from a mile off."

"Not necessarily. Not if we plan it carefully."

"Have you ever been careful in your life?"

"There's a first time for everything."

Alan raised his eyes skyward as though silently begging some unknown deity to help him. He was beginning to understand the exasperation the rest of his brothers experienced daily.

"But what if-"

"Hush." Gordon waved a hand at him. "I'm scheming."

Alan groaned and threw himself onto his front, returning to his dozing. This was going to be a long wait.

-

It was approaching sunset when Alan spoke up again. This was partly because he'd been sleeping for quite a length of time, but also because Gordon was mildly scary when he was disturbed during his plotting hours.

"We should build a fire."

"By we I hope you mean you."

Alan blinked. "Uh, no?"

"I've just hiked across the island and back – I'm not moving again for another hour at least."

"I thought you said it was only a mile. Besides, that was ages ago."

"Not the point." Gordon was sat in a position that appeared very zen. He could even have been meditating. He was, in fact, planning the downfall of a pair of internationally wanted criminals, and it was one of his best, if not the deadliest, schemes of all. The exact details were still escaping him, but that was probably due to the headache he was sporting, a classic sign of dehydration that he recognised all too well. He opened his eyes and stared at Alan. It was probably high time that he took a break, he thought to himself. "I'm working."

Alan looked at him dubiously. "You're plotting. You can probably do that in your sleep."

"Almost definitely." Gordon stretched out his legs. "Fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Just gather those leaves into a pile." Alan pointed to the scattered debris from the foliage that was lining the beach mere metres from their current lurking spot. "I'll go get some sticks, or something."

"Can you even light a fire?" Gordon called after him. "Wait, don't go too far. We don't know what else lives in there."

"If I run into a particularly terrifying lizard then I'll be sure to let you know."

Gordon glowered after him. "If you get eaten by something, don't blame me!"

Alan made a point of acting shocked when he returned with an armful of logs and twigs and a strange looking branch that appeared to be more of a tree in its own right than it did a wooden limb. "Can you believe I survived? It's a miracle."

Gordon flipped him off.

"Excuse me." Alan gave an obviously fake gasp. "I'm shocked by this behaviour. What would Penelope say?"

"That you're a smug, self-righteous son-of-a-"

Alan took this moment to throw as many leaves as humanly possible in his brother's face and the argument was immediately forgotten. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that Gordon was laughing, but Alan was satisfied that a lesson had been taught all the same.

Gordon had been the one to actually join the scouts, but Alan, as it turned out, was the one who was skilled at creating a spark. A small plume of smoke rose from beneath his hands and he gave a triumphant yell only to start shouting in horror as it instantly blew out.

Gordon was smirking. "You sure you don't want any help?"

"No! I mean, yes, as in yes I'm sure I don't need help."

"Okay. If you're sure."

Ten minutes later Alan crawled over to him holding out reddened hands with a sorrowful expression on his face. "Hypothetically," he asked, "if I was to ask for a hand, would you make fun of me?"

"I think we both know the answer to that."

"What if I asked you very nicely not to?"

Gordon looked across to Scott. "If you're listening," he said wearily, "then you'd better be proud of me, because there are so many jokes I'm letting go right now." He held out a hand for the two sticks, one with a dent and suspicious scorch marks across it. "Give it here."

Sunset dawned with a rich watercolour of oranges, peaches, reds and deep pinks. Sprinkles of clouds were touched a pale silver, gleaming high up in the sky, silent promises of future rain withheld. The colours reflected on the water, turning the ocean a warm copper. Alan sat next to Scott and watched it while Gordon managed to keep the fire going long enough for the rest of the leaves and twigs to catch alight.

"We've been gone over twenty-four hours," Alan whispered when Gordon returned.

"Yeah." Gordon contemplated this. "I guess we have."

They both stared at the sunset. Streaks of crimson decorated the sky and Gordon looked away.

"I'm really hungry."

"Me too."

"Seriously. I'd even eat something Grandma had cooked right now."

Gordon looked vaguely horrified. "I don't know if I'd go that far…"

Alan was quiet. He had the air about him of someone deep in concentration as they think of something revolutionary and extraordinary. "We should use the med-scanner."

"Would that even work without a signal?"

Alan shrugged. "I don't know. But it might tell us what's causing the fever."

"I have a pretty good idea," Gordon muttered under his breath so that Alan didn't hear him. "Okay."

Neither of them moved.

"Can you do it?"

"Me?" Gordon looked incredulous. "Why? It's your watch."

"Yeah, but what if it…" What if it shows something serious, remained unspoken, but Gordon knew what his brother had wanted to say.

"Alright," he sighed. "Give it here."

Alan handed the wrist-console over obediently. "Thanks."

There was a pause. "Yeah, yeah," Gordon replied after a beat. "You're welcome or whatever."

He found himself torn between desperately urging the wrist-console to work and wanting to bury his head in the sand – if the results came back with anything fatal then there was quite literally nothing he could do. Denial, he thought bitterly, was a wonderful thing.

The capabilities of the medical scan thrown from the watch-interface were limited; usually it would run a thorough list of all injuries, their probable causes and any further complications they may lead to along with the treatments and immediate priorities. Alan's wrist-console was struggling to cope without the massive database that was Thunderbird Five to feed it information, and the feeble red light that scoured across Scott was not very reassuring. Gordon tapped at the screen until it flickered and finally threw up an awfully short looking list. He wasn't sure whether to be thankful that there weren't too many injuries, or worried that the tech could give him so little information.

"Anything too bad?"

He tilted the watch to the side. The holograms flipped with it. "Um…"

"Um isn't an answer." Alan's gaze was fixed on the sunset. "What is it? Something bad, isn't it?"

"Even if there was, this thing wouldn't be able to tell me."

"Waste of time, huh?"

"It told us exactly what we already knew. It did say that there was above a fifty-percent chance that there is an infection, so, you know, very helpful."

If it was possible to meet the most sarcastic person on the planet, then Gordon would still be giving them a run for their money at this moment. He was tempted to throw the watch as far as he could and watch it sail into the distance. He imagined stamping on it, just for good measure – he'd never coped well with frustration.

"So that's that then."

Gordon tossed a stray leaf into the fire. "I guess."

"Maybe…we could find a way to get it to bypass…no, that wouldn't work." Alan shut himself down before he could finish his thought. He was still staring at the setting sun as though it could whisper the secrets of the universe to him – a sight mirrored on planets across the galaxy – with so many worlds, surely one of them had to hold the answers he sought. He dug his fingers into the sand; the top layers were dusty and parted easily like flour in a cake mix, but the deeper he got the damper the ground was, hard-packed and as dark as the oncoming night. Sunsets were vibrant and beautiful in this part of the world, but they also happened to be some of the quickest. "Does it tell us what kind of infection?"

"It needs a link with Five for that. It doesn't even say for sure that there is an infection."

"There's got to be, right? I mean, what else could cause a fever?"

Gordon glared at the leaping flames. He had a couple of ideas of his own about that – namely, a head injury, which could easily cause both the fever and the extended unconsciousness if it was serious enough.

"Do you reckon I could reach one of those coconuts?"

Gordon startled out of his thoughts. "No."

"I'm really good at climbing."

"Sure."

"No, really. Kayo taught me how to climb ropes in the gym."

Somehow that really didn't surprise him. He was also a tad jealous. "What happens when you fall and break something?"

"I'll break your face in a moment," Alan muttered darkly, then snuck a guilty look at his brother to see if Gordon had heard – he had but chose not to say anything – a remarkably mature decision for him. At the very least Alan seemed to have given up on his entire coconut idea – for now. "I am hungry though."

Gordon gave a weary sigh. He suddenly looked a lot older than his twenty years. "I know," he said quietly. "I'll figure something out in the morning Al."

Alan knew not to press the issue. "Okay." He knocked his shoulder against his brother's. "I'll help you."

"Thanks."

The sunset disappeared as suddenly as it had come on and took the heat with it. Alan was able to pull the top half of his uniform back on but Gordon, dressed only in the shorts he'd been wearing beneath his uniform, found himself trying not to shiver. He crawled closer to the fire in a feeble attempt to keep warm.

"This could be worse."

"How?" He snapped back at Alan.

Alan paused. "Well," he finally settled on, "it could be raining."

Gordon, in all his exasperated glory, rolled onto his back, spread his arms as close as he dared to the flames, and watched the oncoming night seep ink into a pale peach sky. The stars were beginning to creep out in their thousands, pinpricks of diamonds stretching beyond the bounds of human exploration and onto infinity.

Time passed. It could have been hours but could just as easily have been minutes. Neither was sure. Reality seemed very different at night.

"Are you scared?"

Alan's voice was soft amongst the crackling of the fire. Gordon stared up at the canopy of stars, wondering which of the brightest dots was Five.

"Yes," he murmured after a moment. Alan was silhouetted against the flames. Gordon rolled over to face him. "Yeah, I am."

Alan propped his chin up in one hand. His gaze was directed at the stars. He'd always been a child of space, even before their father had dreamt of the very concept of Thunderbird Three. "That's okay," he whispered back. "'Cos I am too."

A leaf blackened to a crisp under the flames, sparks dancing along the ballroom of logs. Gordon yawned, filtering sand through his fingers simply for something to do. Exhaustion was glimmering in the blurriness at the corners of his vision, but he was reluctant to give in to sleep. Part of him didn't want to leave Alan alone, and the other part was terrified that if he fell asleep, he would wake up and find he only had two older brothers in the world, instead of three.

"Do you think Dad's scared?"

Gordon choked on his own saliva and spent a minute coughing and spluttering in the most undignified manner he could manage. "What?"

Alan was still staring up at the heavens. "Dad. Do you think he's scared? I mean, he's up there somewhere, Brains said so. He's been there a very long time, all alone, like us. He thinks no-one's coming to rescue him, like we do."

There was something very cruel and ironic about fate – Gordon had always thought so. "Tracy luck," he muttered.

"Tracy luck to always end up alone, huh?" Alan sounded very bitter.

"I meant we have bad luck, not…that."

"We always find each other though."

"Sure."

"Always. Even if…" Alan's gaze drifted to Scott. Something icy clenched in Gordon's chest.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop." He reached out, meaning to pat his brother's shoulder, but instead Alan seized his arm and just stared at him.

"Do you think he knows?"

"Knows what? Alan, you're tired, go to sleep."

"He has to know."

"Seriously, kiddo, you're kinda scaring me."

"Gordon."

He sighed. "What?"

"Does Scott know we love him?"

Gordon was frozen. He was dimly aware that he needed to take a breath, but his entire being was caught up on Alan's words and the desperation in the teen's eyes.

"Because I've been awful to him in the past. Like, I said horrible things that I didn't mean, and now he's…I don't know if he can hear me so I can't say how sorry I am now, because there's supposed to be more time, right?"

"Alan…" For once in his admittedly short life, Gordon found himself lost for words.

Alan was crying. He wasn't trying to hide his face – he probably thought it was too dark for Gordon to see – but the firelight caught on his tears. "I didn't tell Dad," he whispered brokenly. "I must have done when I was kid, obviously, but the day he left… I don't remember telling him, Gordo, I don't remember, and I should have told him, because I didn't get the chance with Mom…"

"You were a baby."

"And I should have told him I loved him." Alan flinched at his own words. "Love him," he corrected himself. "But suddenly he was gone, and I hadn't told him."

"I'm sure he knew."

"Yeah. But I still should have told him. And I promised myself that I wouldn't let it happen again, and I didn't think it would, but now Scott's…"

"Don't," Gordon warned him. "Don't say it."

"Scott's dying. He's dying and I didn't fucking tell him."

Alan broke off. He was shaking, still clinging onto Gordon's arm as tightly as humanly possible.

"He knows, Alan." Gordon's voice was quiet. "I know he knows, because I know."

Alan didn't speak. He crawled closer, Gordon's arm draped across his shoulders, and pressed as close to his brother's side as he could. They were quiet, watching the fire burn to glowing ashes, the waves crashing in the distance. The world seemed very lonely.


	4. Chapter Four

The first thing Gordon saw when he woke up was Alan's face dangerously close to his own.

"Hypothetically," Alan said quickly before Gordon could say anything, "if I'd climbed one of the palm trees and knocked down some coconuts despite you telling me specifically not to, how mad would you be?"

Gordon looked at him. "That depends. How hypothetical is this scenario?"

"Uh…" Alan shifted to block the sight of a small pile of coconuts gathered by the ashes of the fire. "Not very hypothetical at all really."

"Alan, it's too early to deal with your bullshit, please go away." Gordon draped an arm over his face and closed his eyes again. It stung to blink. There was a part of his mind that was screaming a warning about that. God, he hated sirens.

"Get up." Alan's voice was wavering with something approaching rage but also concern. Perhaps fear – the two were closely linked. "Gordon."

"G'way."

"No."

A hand slapped his face, sharp and harsh. Gordon yelped at the sudden stinging pain and bolted upright. "What was that for?"

"Get the hell up." Alan was glowering at him. "Your pulse is too fast and you're never this tired. The sun's up and you're normally in the pool by now."

"Be fair – my leg is wrecked."

"Blinking more than usual, and I bet that stings a bit, huh?"

Gordon rubbed at his temples. "What?"

"Oh, and there's the headache." Alan had his arms crossed. "Classic signs of advanced dehydration. If you want to really know why I risked the tree, then it's because you need a drink, and so does Scott. Now get up and help me crack open this fucking coconut, because I sure as hell can't."

The problem with coconuts is, quite simply, that they're coconuts which means that they are near impossible to break in the best of circumstances, let alone when you are severely dehydrated. There was a certain skill that came with opening them and this skill was known to a precious few in International Rescue - both of whom were currently sat on this deserted island and one was deeply unconscious - and Alan was about to join their ranks.

Gordon secured the coconut in his lap and stared mutely down at it. There was something he needed to do, he thought sluggishly, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Can't we just smash it open on a rock?"

"Already tried that," Alan told him cheerfully.

"Well that was dumb – you'd have lost all the water."

Alan glared at him. "You literally just suggested doing that."

"I was being…what's the word…using a dark joke voice but not…"

"Sarcastic?"

He snapped his fingers. The effect was sort of diminished by the fact he was listing to the side – his headache was growing worse. "That's the word."

They stared down at the coconut. While Alan was not nearly as dehydrated, the almost debilitating thirst that had his mouth feeling like sandpaper kept his frustration at an all-time high.

"Need something sharp."

"Huh?"

Gordon jabbed a thumb at one of the darker indents at the top of the coconut. "Gotta jab a hole here. Drink from it. Then we can smash the rest of it open and eat it."

"I figured that much on my own, but I couldn't find anything sharp enough."

The truth of the matter was that the only reason why Alan had dragged his brother into this entire problem-solving mess was to gauge a clearer idea of how dehydrated Gordon actually was. This had only served to heighten his anxiety. He awkwardly patted the coconut and then his brother's shoulder and stumbled down the rocky outcrop that crept out into the deeper waters at the far end of the beach to search for a suitable implement.

All the rocks were either too large or eroded to smooth pebbles. Alan wriggled amongst the shallows like a rather ungraceful eel and flung his hands about in a brief attempt to feel for anything sharp before recognising the sheer stupidity of this action. The waves kept a constant flow of sand clouding the water, making it impossible to gain a clear view, so he tried to stand up, only to have a sharp pain scratch along his foot.

His first idea was to give an undignified yelp and jerk his foot out of the water. The second thought was shit, that hurt…ooh, sharpy sharp. That might work.

"Ah ha." He plucked a substantial piece of coral out of the sea. It had sheered off, leaving a jagged edge that was razor-sharp and shaped not unlike a small screwdriver. "That'll do." He held it up to the light. "I'm a genius."

It became abundantly obvious that he was not, in fact, a genius – although he understood many more of Brains' calculations than the rest of his family minus John – when he placed his now suspiciously twinging foot on the sand and discovered that he was bleeding and his only reaction was the following statement:

"Yes. Definitely sharp enough."

Gordon was still sat in the same place, eyes screwed tightly shut to avoid the bright sunlight and hands concerningly shaky where they lay on the coconut. "Tell me," he said slowly in a voice void of all humour, "that you found something."

"You could say that." Alan knelt down and went to stab at the coconut. Gordon caught his wrist before the coral could make contact.

"You're gonna cut up your hands. Don't hold it like that." He tapped at Alan's thumb until the teen moved it accordingly. "See? Won't stab yourself now." He held the coconut firmly in place. "Try again."

It took them a further ten minutes before the coral, now sufficiently dulled, broke through the hard shell to puncture the pale flesh. Alan dropped his makeshift knife with a hiss and inspected his hands. The skin of his palms was a raw, angry red and tiny cuts littered his fingers, stinging with sweat. He pushed his dripping hair out of his eyes and peered closely at the coconut.

"Go on then," he muttered. "Drink up."

Gordon shook his head vehemently and immediately regretted it as spots danced across his vision. "You first."

"I'll kill you myself in a minute."

"Alan."

"If Scott was awake then he'd tell you to stop being an idiot and drink the damn thing."

Gordon snapped his mouth shut, retort dying in his throat. "Low blow."

Alan shoved the coconut at him in response.

Another half-hour later, Alan grabbed another coconut from the pile, retrieved his piece of coral and demanded that Gordon started planning a funeral for his hands.

"How much have you drunk?"

Alan peered into the coconut. "Uh…"

"Oh, goody."

They continued drinking.

"We should make Pina Coladas when we get home and serve them in coconuts with lil' umbrellas and everything."

"Alan, you're like sixteen."

"So?"

Gordon hummed in contemplation. "We could give one to Kayo and see if she's any kinder to us in training."

"Now you're getting it."

An unknown length of time later saw them attempting to get an unconscious Scott to drink some of the coconut water. This was a lot easier said than done.

"You know how we always say that being a Tracy automatically means you're stubborn?"

Alan looked at Gordon questioningly. "Yeah?"

"I think Scott's the most stubborn."

"What about Dad?"

"They're as bad as each other."

In a very quiet voice, Alan added, "I wouldn't know. I can't really remember."

The coconut nearly slipped from Gordon's fingers. "Come on Scott, you stubborn son-of-a-bitch," he muttered, and so they continued.

There was a dull sense of waiting for something inevitable, but neither of them was quite sure as to what it was. They managed to get Scott to drink more of the coconut water, but there wasn't much else they could do. Alan changed the bandages whilst Gordon struggled to move a few fallen palm fronds into a rough shelter to provide further shade. They headed down to the shoreline and sat with their feet in the water whilst they ate some of the coconut. It was slippery and difficult to tear chunks off and Alan was constantly rinsing his fingers in the sea, but they were both so hungry that it tasted almost as good as a five-course dinner.

"Do you feel weird?"

Gordon watched the sun throw marble patterns over his feet in the water. "Weird, how?"

"Like time is gone. I mean, I don't even know how long we've been here. Two days?"

"Roughly."

"Feels like a week though."

"Feels longer than that." Gordon chewed on another piece of coconut. "Actually," he thought aloud, "I think it's been three days."

Alan shuddered. In the distance was the faint splash of a pod of dolphins prancing about in the water, blue-grey skin glistening in the light. The sight would have been idyllic had it not been for the circumstances.

"Do you reckon we'll be here forever?"

Gordon shoved as much coconut into his mouth as possible to avoid answering the question. This, of course, was an answer in itself.

"We should explore the island," he said, feeling a lot better and certainly more refreshed. His headache had diminished substantially, and when he flexed his fingers in the water he found that his hands were no longer shaking. "There's the entire north end that I haven't explored."

"South."

He blinked. "What?"

"South," Alan repeated. "It's the southern end." He gestured to the sky above them. "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west and it rose over there today, so that end's the south."

Gordon rubbed at his temples. "Stop being clever, you're making me feel stupid."

Alan made the wise decision not to start teasing him about that. This was a shame – he had a multitude of jokes lined up that would go to waste, but such was the life of a teenage Tracy on a typical day with an undetermined fate.

He trailed his hands in the water. A shoal of little fish glittered about the rocks, bright flashes of electric blue and red. The bravest of them swam a little closer and bumped silver snouts against his fingertips. "What about Scott?" He questioned.

"We won't be gone long."

This wasn't particularly reassuring. The last time Gordon had used this particular line they had gone exploring the rocky caves at the far end of Tracy Island and had become so lost that they'd had to activate their emergency beacons on their watches – a disgruntled looking Virgil had eventually found them and had spent the journey back muttering about how Scott was almost certainly stealing the last of the apple pie and it was a good quality one too, a professional thing that Kayo had picked up from the mainland.

Alan accepted it anyway. "When d'you want to go?"

"Now?"

"No."

Gordon frowned.

"You're still recovering," Alan elaborated.

"Recovering from dehydration takes days," Gordon pointed out. "We're not waiting that long. We may not have that long."

"Fine." Alan spread his fingers to let the fish filter through. "Give it an hour. When it's not as hot."

They were on a tropical island. On most tropical islands it is a internationally accepted fact that the temperatures do not change until sunset, at which point they plummet within a matter of minutes to a much more sensible variety of degrees. Alan and Gordon lived on a tropical island – admittedly it was one located in an entirely different ocean, but the point still stood – and they should have known this. However, they were two halves of a whole idiot at the best of times, so they took absolutely no notice and set out into the unknown panting and sweating regardless. Around five minutes into their quest, Alan spoke up:

"This is stupid."

"It's us."

"Fair enough."

And that was that.

The ground was reasonably flat at the northern end of the island – large plains that largely consisted of beaches winding around the small crop of trees and other such foliage. This level land gave way to gently sloping hills rising to a steep incline that came to a crest above a dizzyingly tall set of cliffs. Far below was a tiny beach, completely inaccessible from the rest of the island unless you swam around the headland or spontaneously sprouted glorious wings like an angel – Alan was of the opinion that his brother was more of a demon, but then again they had both been in the midst of binge-watching Good Omens the evening before the rescue, so he was applying this thought process to anyone and everyone he came across – hello good sir, or madam, or non-gender abiding human, are you more of an angel or a demon? – and personally believed himself to be a weird hybrid between the two. He shook himself out of his thoughts just in time to spot the rather large tree trunk he was about to walk into.

Fortunately, it seemed that Gordon hadn't noticed. "Come on!"

Alan jogged to catch up with him. He'd left his IR uniform back on the beach, draped over the makeshift shelter of palm fronds and propped branches to help add to the shade – the fact that it was drying off after his dip in the sea was also a bonus. Now he was dressed in the pair of jeans he'd been wearing underneath – they were his old pair, ripped and worn so much that their original blue had now faded to a distinguished white, with a faint orange stain from that one time he dropped spaghetti bolognaise on them – and his usual green t-shirt tied about his waist – his long-sleeved shirt that he usually wore underneath was a) too hot and b) back on Tracy Island, so that sorted the matter for him. "What is it?" he tried to ask, doubled over and panting so it came out in a vague blur that sounded more like whassit.

Miraculously, Gordon seemed to understand. "Highest point of the island." He gestured around them. "We should get a better view. If there's anything we can use like a water source, then we'll see it from here."

"If not," Alan added, leaning conspicuously against a large tree but hoping Gordon wouldn't notice him trying to catch his breath all the same, "we could always start boiling sea water."

"We don't have a container to put it in," Gordon pointed out. "Otherwise we could catch rain as well."

"What about halving the coconuts?"

"Like mini bowls?"

"Yeah."

"The only way we could open them beyond the top was by smashing the whole thing."

Alan took another strained breath. He was beginning to wonder if his ribs had sustained more damage than he'd originally thought on the ships. "Right. That might be a slight problem."

Gordon heaved a sigh that spoke of great exasperation and very tested patience, before settling onto a large rock, resting his hands on his knees and sliding off it into an undignified heap of sprawled limbs. He looked very uncomfortable but didn't move again.

"I've been bitten."

Gordon didn't look up. "What by?" He eventually asked.

"Mosquito?" Alan scrubbed at the red welt on his arm. "It itches."

"Sucker."

"Me or the mosquito?"

There was a snigger. Alan relaxed somewhat – Gordon hadn't laughed properly in over two days now and it was horribly unnatural and unsettling. "Both."

"Rude."

Gordon stuck out his tongue in a very mature comeback.

The island, as it transpired from the vantage point, was a crescent shape that vaguely resembled a slither of moon as shown on DreamWorks films, only minus the boy with the fishing rod – so far, at least; Alan was very good at building things and a fishing rod didn't seem too far out of his range of abilities – with a large stretch of golden beaches curling around its southern reaches. Lighter, aquamarine waters glided around the shores, fading into an inky indigo of darker sea further out; there was a clear line between pale blue and navy where the reef ended, shelving down sharply. The reef itself was easy to spot – a wide ribbon of dark shapes winding from directly in front of the cliffs to the rocky outcrop at their beach haunt, brimming with life – and the waves caught the top of it to form a cluster of white foam.

Behind them, lush green foliage that could have been a rainforest's twin arched down from the cliffs to the far end where it grew sparse, giving way to warm sand. Palm trees formed a thick canopy, interrupted by bursts of vivid yellow and pink flowers. Speckles of white petals caught the light beneath the rush of branches, and flashes of birds' wings appeared every now and then. The trees seemed to part towards the east, forming a strange little circle of what appeared to be clear ground.

"Look at that." Gordon pointed to it. "Are we thinking the same thing?"

"I was thinking that it looked like a UFO landing site, so I'm going to suggest the answer to that is no."

Gordon gave him a pointed look. "This is a serious situation." His frown twitched, threatening to give way to laughter. "You're right though. Look, the trees even look a bit scorched, like there were engines."

Alan stretched out on the gritty ground. "I wonder," he thought aloud, tracing the outline of a cloud with one finger and squinting to keep it in eyeshot, "what aliens would think of us?"

"Us specifically or humans as a species?"

"Either."

This was a serious question which required much consideration.

"They'd probably recruit you for some space exploration team, or something," Gordon said presently. "I'd be asked to go to their home planet as their king."

"What?"

"Yeah. I'd take MAX with me though, just in case they don't like pets there."

"If they don't like pets then they don't sound like my kind of aliens. Anyway, MAX isn't a pet. He's more of a…different sort of person."

"Fine. You could come then."

"What's the catch?"

"Who says there's a catch?"

"It's you, there's always a catch."

"Name one time there was a catch."

"Alright." Alan sat up. "You lent me your diving gear and then made me give you my dessert for a week. One time I borrowed your hoodie and you made me act as your slave for twenty-four-hours. Do I need to go on? Because I can. When we were kids in Kansas, and you bought me candyfloss but then made me ask out Ren for you because you were too embarrassed."

"I was not embarrassed!" Gordon protested loudly. "It was a strategic move. You were a cute kid. Everyone loves kids."

"Ren didn't."

"That's because you threw up five minutes later."

"Your fault for buying too much candyfloss."

"Your fault for not giving me any."

Alan draped an arm across his face. "Whatever. You ended up dating anyway."

Gordon smiled. "Ren had cool blue hair. I remember that. Well, that and the aquarium date."

"Was that the one when you climbed in the tank and got kicked out by security and were almost arrested and Scott got called because Dad was at a conference and you got grounded for an entire month so Ren snuck into your bedroom through my window and I made you pay me in computer time for the entire summer?"

Gordon's smile flickered. "That would be the one."

"Ha. That was good."

Silence fell. A bird squawked. A snake rustled. Neither payed any attention to the two humans laying in the dust.

"I think the aliens would be very disappointed with humans," Gordon said suddenly. "I mean, everything's a lot better now, sure, but there's still so much wrong with the world."

"There's a lot right too though."

"Such as?"

Alan grinned. "International Rescue. I hear those guys are heroes. Especially the one who flies the rocket."

Gordon snorted. "Fucking humble, much?"

"Nah, this is much more fun."

They sat up.

"I miss Ren."

Alan's grin dropped from his face. "I know." He knocked his shoulder against Gordon's. "Sorry for bringing it up. I didn't think."

"It's cool. There are good memories, too." Gordon's sad smile twisted to more of a smirk. "Ah, being on the same swim team was great. So many empty locker rooms."

Alan leapt to his feet, hands plastered to his ears. "And, stop right there. I don't want to hear any more details, thank you very much." He turned to face the curious circle that had started their entire conversation. "Race you down the slope."

"I have a massive open wound on my leg, dumbass," Gordon shouted after him, but Alan was already off. "Idiot," Gordon muttered, but his smile said otherwise. He frowned up at the sky. "Hey Ren, if you're listening, then I could really do with some luck right now." He hesitated. "Mom, too. Either of you really. One more miracle would be really nice." The wind whistled about his ears and he sighed. "Yeah. I figured as much." He set off after Alan.

Trekking down a rather large hill sounds easy – after all, it takes very little effort to go down as opposed to going up. This particular incline was very steep, however, and therefore presented a problem, especially with the tangled snake pit of vines and bracken that wrapped around ankles and clung on for dear life. Gordon stumbled free of a thick patch of knee-high plants that were decorated with thorns and grabbed at a nearby tree to catch his balance.

Alan could be heard somewhere up ahead. Every now and then there was a flash of colour when he appeared between the trees.

Gordon glared in the general direction in which his brother had disappeared. "Would you slow down?" It was more of a command than a question, but Alan had never been good at listening to orders.

"No."

Gordon removed his hands from the tree with a groan. There was something sticky smeared across his fingers – sap, he realised – and he tried to wipe it off on his shorts, but to no avail. He was longing for a swim – leg injuries were the bane of his existence. It was hard to tell how far they were from the clearing now they no longer had the advantage of viewing past the trees, and the heat seemed oppressive, a heavy weight on his chest.

Alan reappeared. "You okay?"

"Fine."

He frowned. "That's a no then."

"Alright, I'm okay. Better?"

"Yep."

Gordon began making his way up ahead again. It was more of a stumbling limp than a brisk walk which caught Alan's attention. While the leg wound was painful it hadn't caused Gordon this much of a problem earlier, so he hung back a little to gain a better look. The bandages were stained a bright red, suggesting that there was fresh bleeding. Alan cursed and darted forwards and around, blocking his brother's path with one outstretched arm.

"Wait, just…just stop for a minute."

Gordon was having none of this. "Aren't we checking out the circle?" He tried to push past Alan – unsuccessfully, Alan would hasten to add.

"Gordon, you're bleeding again."

Gordon twisted and tried to glimpse his injury. The pain had been pushing the boundaries between dull agony and a roaring flame in the past half-hour – he recognised all too well that he'd pushed himself past the limit, but the strange circle was the first lead they'd had in days and he wasn't about to let it go.

"We need to take a look at it."

"No, we need to find the circle."

Alan stared at him and mentally cursed the classic Tracy stubbornness. "Stop being an idiot."

"Says you."

"I will literally carry you back to the beach if you don't stop."

"I'd like to see you try."

"Right now, I think we both know that I could."

"Gravity exists here you know; it's not so easy."

"Stop changing the subject!" Alan took a deep breath to calm himself. It was swelteringly hot, and it would be all too easy to lose his temper. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you're not in pain right now."

Gordon raised his chin defiantly, faltered, and looked away. There was a rather large tree stump that he sank down on, legs trembling beneath his weight. "Alright." His voice was brimming with exhaustion. "Have it your way. What now?"

Alan, unused to winning an argument quite so easily, was taken aback. He hadn't expected to get this far so quickly and hadn't thought of his next move yet. "Um…" He moved closer and dropped into a crouch, fingers prying at the frayed edge of the bandage. "I'll check this."

"Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. That's fine. Doesn't hurt at all."

Alan winced in sympathy. "Yeah, sorry." He didn't look very sorry – more of a frustrated concentration mixed with concern – peeling away the fabric. It clung to the skin with dried blood and he had to tug harder than he'd meant to. There was a pained hiss from above and he glanced up. "Okay?"

"Fine."

Fine – otherwise known as no. Alan hurried up. The injury was inflamed around the edges with a flush raw red, and there was fresh blood slipping over his hands. "Fuck."

"That sounds positive."

He looked up. "We should head back to the beach. This needs cleaning."

"With what? We still have no fresh water. I thought you didn't want to risk the sea?"

"It's better than nothing. We'll have to risk it."

Gordon leant back, resting all his weight on his hands. It was a precarious position, threatening to tip him head over heels into the ferns behind him. "Not very reassuring."

There was something unspoken in his voice - like a touch of fear but too carefully hidden to be identified - that had Alan on edge. "It'll be fine. You'll be fine."

"Ah Allie," came a low drawl, "you know how I feel about that word."

Alan gritted his teeth. "You'll be okay."

"Much better." A twig snapped. Alan tensed. "We should probably be getting back to Scott anyway."

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Gordon scrubbed a hand across his face. His eyes were glazed with dull tiredness and underlying pain.

"Someone's there."

"I wish."

Alan glared at him.

"It's probably an animal."

They listened a little while longer but there were no further sounds. Alan, sighing, admitted defeat and held out an arm for Gordon to grab onto as he struggled to his feet.

"This is a shit holiday."

Alan gave a surprised laugh. "Yeah, no kidding."

"Let's go somewhere else next year."

They made slow progress back towards the sounds of the waves. Gordon's arm was wound around Alan's shoulders to try and keep himself upright. Alan suspected that he was carrying more of his brother's weight than Gordon actually realised.

"I hear the Maldives are nice this time of year."

"Please, God, no more islands."

"We live on one," Alan pointed out. "San Francisco then," he added a moment later. "I've never been."

"Golden Gate Bridge," Gordon said automatically. "I did a rescue there with John a few months back. Some car went over the edge. Big…" He waved his hands, flailed and was only kept from falling flat on his face by Alan's quick reflexes. "Splash. Ka-boom. Not fun." He smiled a little dazedly. "We got food afterwards though. They gave us a discount for saving a load of people. John felt bad about it, but man, I'm telling you, free coffee and donuts. Fucking great."

"Somewhere out there Dad is furious at us for the amount of swearing we've been doing."

"Dad's ex-military, so that would be very hypocritical. Same goes for Scott."

Alan nodded. "Shouldn't you be telling me off?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. Responsible big brother or something?"

Gordon sniggered. "Excuse me, when have I ever had that role? I'm the cool one who has your back when you sneak out to meet with a girlfriend or someone."

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Not my point."

"And you're not the cool one."

"Yeah, I am."

"No."

"Who is, then?"

Alan gave a wicked grin. "Kayo."

The beach twisted into view at the end of the winding path trodden into the ground by decades of animal paws. Clouds were forming on the horizon, blots of ink on a parchment of sky, and the gentle breeze that was ever present next to the sea had picked up. Their makeshift shelter was mostly a battered pile of branches with many of the palm fronds discarded further down the beach where the wind had carried them. Alan was relieved to spot that his uniform was still in place.

Gordon removed his arm from Alan's shoulders and all but tumbled to the ground. He landed with a thud and a pained grimace, shifting his leg out in front of him.

"You're going to have to move closer to the sea."

Gordon buried his face in his hands. There was a suspicious trembling across his shoulders but when he looked up again his eyes were clear. Alan held out a hand.

"Come on," he coaxed. "Then you can crack us another coconut."

"I'm already sick of them," Gordon muttered, but allowed himself to be manhandled towards the ocean. The waves were bigger than usual, splashing and leaping about their thighs rather than knees and a dull grey where it was usually a pale blue. White horses pranced about the reef and the air tasted of rain.

Alan, for the first time in a long while, shivered – there was a definite bite to the air that hadn't been there when they'd set out earlier. He tore his attention away from the bulk of clouds and sank into the water next to his brother. Gordon was distinctly paler than usual, light shivers skittering down his spine. Alan pawed at his shoulder until he looked up.

"What?"

Alan began to undo the dressing again. It was easier in the sea, with the water tugging at the fabric and easing it free of the skin. "You don't look so good."

"Thanks." Gordon breathed in sharply. "Hurts," he admitted in a strained voice.

The water was cloudy with blood. Alan, with a single thought of pity for the reef, let the ruined bandages float away and focused on trying to clear up the wound as best he could. Years of first aid training as both a hobby and an IR necessity was as instinctive as breathing for him, but the worry at the forefront of his mind was still a distraction.

"Salt water," he commented, deciding that talking may help to take Gordon's mind off things. "Stings, right?"

"No kidding." Gordon's eyes were brighter than usual, and he blinked rapidly. Alan didn't mention it.

"Almost done."

"Gonna have to change." Gordon gave another shiver. "Got any spare clothes?"

Alan glanced down at his own drenched jeans and then at Gordon's blood-stained shorts and grimaced. "Only my suit."

"Well shit."

"We didn't think this through."

"Not really."

Another wave crashed, water spraying them both in droplets of sea foam and sand. Alan spat salt from his mouth and wiped it away from his eyes. "What's the first thing you're going to do when we go home?"

Gordon stared stormily at the horizon. "When," he repeated very quietly. Then, brightly: "Take a shower."

"I don't know. I kind of want to order pizza. The nice stuff you can get in Sydney."

"We should get Virgil to fly over to Italy and pick some up for us. It's the least he could do given we had to survive on a deserted island."

Gordon continued to ramble about pizza – this, sadly, was relatively normal for him and not at all a sign of feverish delusions – while Alan made quick work of the injury. The skin was a harsh red that was flushing further around the wound than it had before and was hot to touch even through the sea water, ringing warning bells in his mind. He chose not to mention anything to Gordon – the guy had enough on his plate as it was – and helped him out of the waves, taking shaky steps back up the rise of sand to their shelter, where he reached for another scrap of t-shirt for a new bandage, trying his best to be as gentle as possible. Whether Gordon noticed this or not was uncertain, but his breathing was more even, hands relaxing into the warm sand. There were tiny red crescent moons dug into his palms where he'd been clenching his fists, suggesting that the pain had been worse than he'd let on, and Alan was overcome with a wave of fear and worry.

What if it's infected, he wondered, what am I supposed to do? There aren't any medical supplies here. And Scott's…he's…

"Scott?"

Gordon jolted out of the half-doze that he'd fallen into when Alan darted past him, a blur of frantic limbs and tan skin. "What's going on?"

Alan was leaning over Scott, eyes wide and hands pressed lightly to his brother's shoulders. "His hand moved. I think he's waking up."

Gordon crawled closer. "Seriously?"

They sat and waited a moment longer. The air was so thick with tension that it could have been cut with a butter-knife. Nervous excitement and apprehension thrummed through their veins in the tapping of hands and held breath.

Scott opened his eyes.

Gordon didn't dare breathe.

"Scotty?" Alan whispered.

Scott blinked up at him. "Alan?"

In the distance a wave shattered the air. All time seemed to have stopped. Gordon, still unnoticed, collapsed back against the ground, hands trembling and breathing rapidly. He tangled his fingers in his hair and tried to blink back the tears of relief that scorched his eyes and cheeks.

Alan flung himself forwards. He was careful to avoid the deep injury sheered across Scott's chest but wrapped his arms above it, pressing his forehead to one uniform-clad shoulder. He had no shame in admitting he was crying. "You're awake," he couldn't stop saying, smiling through the tears. "You're alive."

A hand landed on his back, a thumb gently rubbing circles into his shoulder blade. Alan gave another somewhat hysterical cry.

"I'm supposed to be comforting you," he accused Scott, sniffing. "Not the other way around."

Scott opened his mouth to speak and grimaced. Gordon silently handed Alan one of the already opened coconuts and Alan helped Scott to drink some of the water.

"Sorry we don't have ice chips," Alan announced. "We're kind of limited with resources here." He swiped tears away from his eyes and gave another sniff. "I can't believe you're awake."

Scott stared up at the palm trees and then Alan. "What…where…" He coughed, took another sip of coconut water, and tried again. "The ships sank." His eyes widened in horror. "The containers. Are you okay? Where's Gordon? Is he alright?"

Gordon raised a hand and leisurely waved it. "Cut up my leg pretty bad but I'm good." His voice was wavering slightly, something which Alan didn't notice, but Scott picked up on. He was still thinking sluggishly due to the dull fever but managed to make a mental note of it and the haunted look Gordon was sporting and told himself to talk about it later when Alan was out of earshot.

"I'm fine," Alan murmured. "Thanks to you and Gordon."

"Don't." Gordon's voice was very quiet, and Alan ignored him.

"He pulled us free of the ships when they sank and got us onto the raft. We would've drowned if it wasn't for him, you especially."

It was unusual to hear this level of wonder in Alan's voice when he was speaking about Gordon. As a young kid, and even now to a certain extent, Alan had always hero-worshipped his older brothers, but this was mostly Scott and occasionally John and Virgil. Gordon, with only the three years between them and with his happy-go-lucky attitude to life, was never seen in the same regard, and had accepted this years ago, so to hear the awed tones in Alan's praises stirred some long-forgotten envy and longing in his chest from their childhood and had him threatening to cry again.

"It wasn't that much."

"You saved us."

"That's our job."

Alan looked confused. "What's with you? Why won't you take the credit for this? I mean, you were pretty badass out there Gordo."

"And now we're here."

Scott rubbed at his temples. "Someone tell me…well, everything, I guess."

Alan opened his mouth to speak but fell silent when Scott's eyes flickered to Gordon. "I'll go get some more wood for the fire," he said, clambering to his feet. "It'll be sunset soon."

His figure struck a deep shadow across the beach, a warm glow descending into the sky that wrestled with the distant clouds. He'd forgotten to change back into his uniform and Gordon watched the sand clinging to his jeans in vague amusement. Scott's hand fumbled at his shoulder and he jumped.

"Huh?"

Scott gave him a searching look. "Talk to me."

"Ships sank. Couldn't contact anyone, still can't. We got washed up here. You're hurt…we thought…I didn't think for a while that…" Gordon wrapped his arms around himself. "It was bad. Me and Alan built this as a wind shield. We've lived off the coconuts. Haven't found a water source. I think the Chaos Crew are nearby."

"Gordon." Scott's voice was soft with unspoken concern. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

Gordon stared obstinately at the horizon. If he fixed his sights on one particular cloud and didn't look away, then he might just be able to avoid Scott's questions. His eyes were burning, and he dropped his head to his knees drawn up close to his chest. He was still trembling. He couldn't stop. All of a sudden it seemed very cold.

"Gordy."

"Stop." His voice cracked. "Don't. Please."

"Why not?"

Scott sounded so damned concerned and caring and Gordon couldn't deal. "Because."

"Hey. Come on, Fish, talk to me."

Fuck. The childhood nickname. Scott knew all his weak spots and how to get him to talk – always had done – and Gordon was on the verge of crying. Maybe he already was.

"Because I almost lost you. And I didn't…Alan's scared, and I haven't done enough. We're still here. You were…you still are…"

"I know."

"I don't think you do."

"Gordon, I've taken hits on rescues before. I know what this feels like. I can't let myself think about it, so I'm going to do what I know best and that's looking out for you guys."

"We're miles away from the rescue site. No-one's going to find us before it's too late. There's no food other than coconuts. I can't do anything and anything I have done isn't enough."

"Gordon…"

"I mean look at us right now. I thought you were going to fucking die and I wouldn't get to speak to you ever again and now you're awake and all I'm doing is whining. What I meant to say is…" He couldn't breathe.

Scott was staring at him. "I know you. I've known you literally since the day you were born and Dad told me that I had another brother and Mom let me hold you, so of all people I'm the one who can say that I'm one hundred percent certain that you've done everything you can to keep us safe and alive. Don't you dare beat yourself up over things you can't control." He shifted his weight on his elbows, sitting up as best he could. "Come here."

Gordon dug his nails into his palms. "I can't."

"Why?"

"Because you'll hug me and be all concerned and keep telling me that there's nothing else I could've done and if you do that then…look, you were unconscious. Alan needed me to be the strong one."

"Okay." Scott took a shuddering breath. Now he was upright his injuries were flaring into life like hellfire. "Then say it's for my sake. You wouldn't deny your brother a hug when he's gravely injured, would you now?"

Gordon gave him an incredulous stare. "You are such a manipulative bastard sometimes."

"You love me anyway."

Gordon barrelled into him, clinging on tightly like Scott was his lifeline. He was trembling, and Scott wrapped an arm around him, hugging back just as fiercely. "You're right," Gordon whispered through another choked cry. "I do. And I'm really sorry. I'm really fucking sorry…"

"I'd ask why but I doubt I'd like the answer."

"…for everything." Gordon took a deep breath. He was still crying, but somehow it was alright. "I'm sorry for everything. I thought you were going to die and…I'm sorry."

"Hey." Scott dropped his chin to the mess of hair below where Gordon was still burying his face in his shoulder and sighed. "It's okay."

"Don't die."

He gave a broken laugh. "I'll try my best."

"Scott."

"Alright." There was silence for a beat. "Alright," Scott murmured. "I won't leave you, little brother. It's okay. You did good."

And just for a little while the world seemed safe again.


	5. Chapter Five

The world was not safe.

Although Scott had woken up, his fever hadn't broken and his temperature skyrocketed later that evening, leaving Alan panicking until Gordon sent him down to the sea to gather as much cool water as possible. Scott was caught between bouts of lucidness and times when the fever took a hold of him and scrambled his thoughts to frantic ideas that were both paranoid, disturbing and incomprehensible. Gordon sat by his side through it all and silently thanked his past self for sending Alan down to the sea – if seeing their usually infallible big brother in such a state was unnerving for him, then he dreaded to think how Alan would react.

"Gordo'."

"Yes?"

Scott gave a muffled sound that seemed to be a mix between a sob and a gasp. "It's burning. The world. It's on fire."

Gordon took a deep breath. "I promise you it's not."

"Please. You gotta go. You've gotta get to safety."

"Sorry Scooter, you know the rules. No-one gets left behind."

Scott stared at him desperately. His eyes were unnaturally bright with fever and his hair was soaked with sweat. "Please," he whispered.

Something painful twisted in Gordon's chest and he shook his head. He'd never wished Virgil was here more than now – if anyone was going to get through to Scott then it would be him. "It's okay."

"What happened?"

"You got hurt."

"Where's Virg and Johnny?"

"At home."

Scott fell silent. He was trembling and Gordon laid a hand on his shoulder to try and keep him from turning and tearing open his wound any further. "Where's Dad?"

Gordon froze. "I…" He choked past the lump in his throat. "He's not here right now."

"Where is he?"

"I…"

"Gordy," Scott grasped hold of Gordon's shoulder in a surprising feat of strength, fingers digging in almost painfully. "Please, where's Dad, he's not safe, you've gotta warn him…I don't…" He slumped back, gasping. "You've gotta get Dad. I've gotta tell him."

"Tell him what?"

"I…I don't know."

Gordon closed his eyes and furiously willed himself not to cry. "That's okay. I'm sure he knows."

"But I want him here."

"I know you do."

"S'burning. Dad's gone. I can't find you."

Gordon brushed damp hair back from Scott's forehead and winced at the heat radiating from his skin. "I'm right here, Scotty."

"No."

"Hey, hey, hey." Gordon gently lowered him back to the ground as Scott tried to fight his way upright. His skin was boiling against Gordon's hands, fever ravaging through his body, but despite the heat he was shivering. His uniform was peeled down to his waist but couldn't go any further for fear of damaging the fractures even more. Gordon had torn the shirt free once Scott had sweated through it an hour before. "Calm down," he urged. "You're okay."

"It hurts."

Gordon wasn't sure that Scott even knew that it was him he was talking to anymore. "I know."

"Let me up. Why are y' doin' this?"

"I'm not. You're hurt. It's just the fever."

"You're burning me. Please, stop."

Gordon glanced over his shoulder to check if Alan was on his way back. "I promise I'm not."

Scott didn't have the energy to fight him anymore and collapsed back against the sand. His pupils were blown wide with terror and Gordon had no clue what to do.

"S' fire."

"No."

"Let 'em go."

Gordon frowned. "Let who go?"

"M' brothers. I'll stay…stay but they go. Please…let them…please…"

The next few words were slurred, and Gordon couldn't understand them, but he definitely comprehended the frightened sob that was choked out a second later.

"Fuck," he whispered under his breath. "Please don't cry. I can't deal with you crying. You're not meant to."

Scott was too far gone to understand, twisting and turning despite Gordon's best attempts to hold him still. His face was damp with sweat and tears and Gordon felt like crying himself. For the first time since Scott had woken up, he found himself genuinely wondering if his brother would win the battle against the fever.

Alan's footsteps came to a faltering halt. "Is he any better?"

Gordon wiped his hand across his face and reached for the sopping wet strips of shirt. They were blessedly cold, and he laid the first one across Scott's forehead. Scott turned his face into the new source of relief and Gordon relaxed a little. At least he was responding now.

"Give me another one."

Alan obliged and Gordon laid the two drenched cloths on Scott's wrists. "What can I do?"

Gordon beckoned Alan closer. "Lay them on the pulse points, it'll lower his temperature faster."

Alan hissed as his fingers brushed the bare skin of Scott's arm. "Jesus. How high is his fever?"

"Too high."

The clouds that had swamped the horizon earlier where now directly overhead, soaking the sky in a sea of dull cotton. Despite the lack of sun it was still mercilessly hot, and they were all grateful for the wind that was steadily picking up.

"At this rate we're going to have to risk the sea," Gordon muttered.

Alan, looking horrified but grimly determined – this was not an uncommon expression to be spotted out on rescue - nodded. "He's not unconscious."

"I know."

"No, I mean… saltwater… it's gonna hurt. Like, really hurt."

Gordon reached for a second strip of cloth and avoided Alan's gaze. "I know."

Neither of them moved.

"Give it five minutes," Gordon suggested. "Just in case."

Alan glared at the clouds. "I don't know – the world hasn't been exactly great at giving us miracles in the past few days."

"Five minutes."

He sighed. "Alright."

Scott's fever didn't break in those five minutes – if anything, he seemed to be burning up more than ever – but what did happen was a loud rumble of thunder accompanied by the first spots of water across the beach, the sea thrashing with fury at the ripples scattering its surface. Alan scrambled to his feet, eyes wide with renewed hope. He threw his hands up in the air, face turned to the sky, and laughed, spinning in a wide circle.

"It's raining!"

Gordon looked up. The rain was coming down faster now, a thick curtain of cool water that splashed against his face and hands. His hair was soon drenched, plastered to his forehead, and he tried to scrape it out of his eyes in order to check on Scott.

The rain, it seemed, was the miracle they'd been waiting for. It kept a constant flow of cold across Scott's skin, and appeared to be combatting the fever with a fierce sense of duty. Gordon hesitantly held out a hand and let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

"His temperature's falling."

Alan gave a loud whoop and continued to dance about the beach, flinging damp sand into the air in his wake. The rain coursed down in a deluge, lightning flashing in the distance and growls of thunder breaking the sky in two.

"I've never been so glad for rain in my life." Gordon held his hands out, palms up, and let the water collect in a little pool, splashing it to his face and grinning despite himself.

"Yes," Alan hissed through laughter. "Rain gods, you have pleased me."

"Alan," Gordon called across from his position sat next to Scott, spilling rainwater across his face and shoulders whenever he collected enough of it in his hands. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"I don't know," Alan shouted cheerfully. "But it sounded cool!" He threw his arms up with another yell. "This is great!"

"This is insane."

Alan stared at him. "Don't upset the rain gods."

"Right." Gordon bowed to the heavens above. "Please forgive me, good sir."

"That was a rubbish British accent."

"You try."

Alan tried, and failed – rather miserably, it was worth noting. He sank down onto the sand with a heavy thump, still grinning maniacally. He suspected that Gordon was right – they did look insane, with torn and bloodied clothes, one semi-conscious man sprawled across the sand, and crazed smiles – but couldn't bring himself to care. After all, it wasn't as though there was anyone around to see them. He shuffled closer, water still cascading from the sky and trickling down his back. There were raindrops dripping from his lashes and nose and he blinked rapidly to clear them.

"How's Scott?"

Gordon was no longer paying attention to the weather conditions. Instead, he was bent over Scott, fingers prying at the bandages and then testing his temperature.

"He's…fighting it," Gordon finally settled on saying. This was apparently a good enough explanation, for Alan nodded and slumped back against the sand, dangling his hands in the air and watching the raindrops chase each other down his wrists.

"Good." Alan paused. "Uh…what do we now?"

Gordon wiped rain from his face. "We wait."

Scott's temperature nose-dived and then rose again. All they could do was ride out the waves and pray that the rain kept up. It did for the most part, until sunset struck, and it petered out to the extent that Alan was able to light the fire and dry out his uniform and jeans, lounging around in boxers and complaining about the sand again. Gordon cracked open another coconut and they ate it whilst perched on a log in front of the fire, fingers sticky with sea salt.

Darkness fell with an eerie sensation of eyes watching them. Alan hesitated, scraps of cloth dangling from his arms as he stared into the blackness. Scott's fever had rocketed again, and they needed more cold water, but the idea of going down to the beach alone had him on edge.

"You alright?" Gordon's face was speckled in the amber reflections of the flames. Alan was jolted into a vivid memory of a camping trip as kids.

"Yeah," he replied, forcing himself to head down to the sea. He didn't stay long, the cloud cover making it increasingly difficult to see where he was walking. He returned to find an exhausted Gordon flaked out in the dust, one hand draped over Scott's arm in a feeble attempt to keep an eye on their brother's temperature.

"I'll take over," Alan whispered. There was no reply. "Gordon?"

"Wha'?" Gordon bolted upright, rubbing at his eyes and yawning. "Shit, did I fall asleep?"

"You need it." Alan motioned to the fire. "Go on. I'll keep watch here."

Around forty minutes later Scott's fever finally fell back to a less worrying temperature. Gordon, who apparently had woken up just in time – it was doubtful as to whether he'd ever fallen asleep in the first place – padded over, one hand dropping onto Alan's shoulder and squeezing lightly.

"Come and sleep."

"What if he gets bad again?"

"We'll wake up."

"How do you know?"

Gordon gave a soft smile. "We just will."

Alan gave one last doubtful look at Scott and followed Gordon to the fire. The ground was still damp from the rain and he tucked his shirt under his head in a makeshift pillow, stretching until he found a more comfortable position. Tree frogs chirped in the distance, accompanied by the gentle splash of the waves. He closed his eyes and tried his best to sleep. Morning couldn't come quick enough.

-

Gordon awoke with a jolt as if he had been startled from a horrific nightmare that he couldn't remember. He sat up, rubbing the blurriness from his vision and rolling his shoulders, tasting the rain on the breeze. He wasn't quite sure as to what had woken him, but the pair of wide blue eyes blinking at him in the dim glow of the fire proved that Alan had been disturbed too.

"Did you hear that?" Alan whispered.

Gordon frowned. "Hear what?"

It was overcast – thick clouds smothering the moon – and other than the embers of the fire it was completely dark – the kind of dark that is oppressive and thick, smearing your vision and hands in the inky blackness. There was a sort of presence in the air that hadn't been there before – a tension that had them holding their breath.

Gordon squinted, trying to glimpse the ocean. There were a few specks of white where the waves pickpocketed the reef, but even they were barely visible. It felt ominous, as though something was about to strike.

"I don't hear anything," he whispered back.

Alan looked unnerved. He bit his lip and shuffled closer, pupils blown wide in fright. There were goose-bumps running along his arms although it wasn't cold. He pressed himself against Gordon's side, their shoulders knocking together, and shivered.

Then, suddenly, a distant boom, as if there'd been an explosion. It was almost like thunder, but very unnatural.

Gordon bolted upright. "I heard that."

Alan sat up, breaths short and shaky. His hands were clenched into fists. "What is that?"

"I'm not sure."

There was another rumble.

"Remember that scene in Jurassic Park?" Alan mumbled. "You know, when the T-Rex is approaching the cars and there's just thuds and the cup on the dashboard shakes?" Gordon gave a sharp nod. "Well this is just like it."

"On the plus side we're not going to get eaten by a dinosaur."

"I don't know," Alan muttered, looking doubtful, "who knows what sort of mad science the Hood is involved in."

Another boom sounded. The palm fronds rustled. Scott gave a pained whine in his sleep and rolled over.

"Something's wrong."

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock," Gordon retorted.

Alan glared at him, but this was quickly replaced by a fearful expression. He pointed at the shattered remains of a coconut that had managed to collect some of the earlier rain. "Uh…remember what I said about Jurassic Park?" He stared at the water, which was filled with ripples with every boom.

"Shut up," Gordon hissed. "I'm trying to listen."

The explosions seemed to be getting more frequent. There was no way to tell how far away they were, but they were unnerving and had some deep, instinctual part of his mind screaming to run away as fast as possible.

"Where's your shirt?"

Alan, who had taken his t-shirt off to let it dry earlier, handed it to him. "Why?"

"We need to smother the fire. I don't know what that is, but whoever's making it can't be good."

"But they could help get us out of here," Alan pointed out. "We should signal them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"It could be the Chaos Crew."

"But what if it isn't?"

"What if it is?"

"What if this is our one chance to save Scott and we let it go?"

Gordon snapped his mouth shut. His jaw was clenched, and he looked away, visibly angry and genuinely hurt by the comment. It had been a low blow and one that Alan had known would cause as much harm as possible, catching Gordon directly in one of his fears and insecurities.

"Alan, please," he whispered, desperation catching his voice in a strange lilt. "I need you to trust me on this. You said you had a bad feeling before."

"I was talking about the shipwrecks."

"Yes, but look at me and tell me in all seriousness that this doesn't feel wrong."

Alan faltered. "Alright." He spread his shirt out over the fire and smothered the dying embers until the glow had faded. It was so dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face and his heart was pounding in his chest. He swallowed nervously. A hand reached out, flailing about in the air until it connected with his shoulder where it was followed by an arm sliding across and pulling him closer until he was sat closely against Gordon's side.

"It's got to be the Chaos Crew," Gordon whispered.

Alan shivered. "What do you think they're doing?"

"Nothing good, that's for sure."

Another thunderous explosion in the distance. There was a muffled scuffle from behind them.

"We need to check on Scott."

Gordon gave a soft curse. "I know. But it's too dark and too dangerous to light the fire again."

"His fever might have spiked again."

"I know."

"Gordon?"

There was a pause. A boom. Another whimper from the palm fronds behind. Gordon took a deep breath and Alan felt him tense. "Do you trust me?"

Alan didn't hesitate. "Absolutely."

"Good. We're going to stay here, in the dark, and wait until either it stops, or we reach dawn. There's nothing we could do for Scott right now other than collect more sea water anyway, which, if I'm honest, won't make much of a difference."

Alan nodded, realised Gordon couldn't see him, and felt a bit stupid. "Okay."

Time passed. No-one knew how long it had been. The explosions continued, threatening and a deadly promise that danger was close by, stalking them through the night.

"I don't think I can sleep," Alan admitted. Their voices were hushed, as though the slightest sound could draw the enemy to them.

Gordon sighed. "Me neither." He hesitated. His wrist was resting against Alan's arm and Alan felt his brother's pulse jump as there was another rumble.

"I don't feel safe."

There was something about the darkness that seemed like there was an anonymity about their words. Alan would never have admitted this otherwise.

"You know," Gordon replied slowly, "if you want, you could try to sleep, and I'll stay awake. Keep watch or something. I've got your back."

"I know." Another boom. Then, "Alright."

Gordon's smile could be heard in his voice. "Okay."

Alan slid down into the sand. The darkness meant that he still couldn't see Gordon, but the idea of being alone amongst the threatening violence that thrummed through the air had rendered him nauseous. He crept closer, one hand clinging to Gordon's bicep until he could rest his head on the aquanaut's thigh and curled up as small as possible. It was a rather undignified position for a teenager that had flown into space and back, but then Gordon's hand settled on his ribs like a silent promise, and he relaxed.

"I can literally feel how tense you are. You can't sleep like that."

"Can't help it."

Gordon coughed awkwardly as though he was going to say something but decided otherwise. A moment later his other hand moved to Alan's head and started combing through sand-covered blond hair. Alan hesitated, then relaxed.

"I'm a bit shit at this," Gordon admitted, sounding embarrassed. "But I remember after Dad disappeared, when you used to get nightmares…Scott used to do this, right? And it used to help."

Alan smiled into the darkness. "Yeah," he whispered. "It helps."

The beach seemed to rumble in accordance with the explosions.

"Hey Gordo?"

"Yeah?"

Alan was very quiet, barely audible. "In case something happens…love you."

Gordon's hand faltered, then continued. "Love you too."

The explosions didn't seem quite so intimidating anymore.

-

Morning dawned with a chorus of birdlife from the forest. Gordon rolled onto his back and yawned, blinking up at the clear skies above and wondering when he'd fallen asleep. The fuzziness to his mind that seemed as though his head was filled with cotton wool suggested that it hadn't been until late – or very early, depending on how you looked at things. Alan was still asleep, snoring lightly, draped across the sand in a tangled heap of limbs. His hand was resting on Gordon's ankle, as though anchoring himself.

Scott was awake. Gordon extracted his ankle from Alan's grip, checked his younger brother seemed peaceful enough, and headed up the beach from the remains of the fire, a certain green shirt still clinging to the ashes.

"How are you feeling?"

Scott grimaced. "Like I could do with a shower."

Gordon gave a breathless laugh. "Yeah. I'll make a complaint to the hotel staff. The lack of facilities here is disgraceful."

Scott gave him a knowing smile and turned his attention to the sea. "Sorry if I said anything...well, anything bad."

"Nah, no worries." Gordon waved a hand. "You were pretty out of it."

"So I did say something?"

"You had a fever Scotty, I'm pretty sure your brain was frazzled."

"I'm interested now. What did I say?"

Gordon sighed. "You went on about fires for a while. I think you thought I was burning you or something." The or something was added for Scott's benefit – Gordon knew fully well that this was exactly what his brother had thought whilst in the throes of the fever.

Scott looked horrified. "Sorry."

"For what?"

"Accusing you?" It was more of a question.

"Don't be. I know you didn't mean it."

They sat in a companionable silence.

"There's more, isn't there?" Scott asked.

Gordon fiddled with the hem of his shorts. There was a loose thread that kept getting caught on his nail and he tugged at it viciously. "You were asking for Dad," he finally admitted.

Scott didn't reply. Gordon slid his gaze across to his brother. Scott was staring at the horizon and seemed to be collecting his thoughts or recalling some distant memory. Either way, he looked strangely haunted.

"You okay?"

"Seriously? We nearly had to dump you in the sea your temperature was so high, and you're asking if I'm okay right now?"

"Gordon."

Gordon dug his fingers into the sand. "Dad's still out there, somewhere. We've just got to find him."

"I know."

"We will. Find him, I mean." He watched as Alan twisted onto his back, yawning widely, cat-like. "Won't we?"

"I'm not going to stop trying until I bring him home."

Gordon nodded. It was time to change the topic, he decided. "Want any coconut?"

"Go on then."

Alan made his way up the beach to join them a little while later. His hair was sticking out at all angles and there was sand pressed to his cheek, eyes still bloodshot from disturbed sleep, but he looked a lot brighter than he had the previous evening. He plonked himself down on the sand next to Scott and wordlessly took the coconut Gordon offered him. It took him another five minutes of munching before he started speaking and his brothers exchanged an amused look – much like Virgil with his coffee, Alan didn't talk until he'd eaten in the mornings.

Gordon was struggling to open another coconut when Alan spoke up for the first time.

"Did you hear the explosions last night?"

Scott blinked, taken aback. "No?" Confusion was drawn on his features. "What explosions?"

"In the distance." Alan pointed towards the horizon. "There were these massive booms." He licked coconut water from his fingers. "They were kinda creepy. Gordon reckons they're the Chaos Crew."

There was a contemplative pause.

"I'd like to know what they're still doing here," Gordon said. He was focussing on trying to secure a thicker band of cloth around his leg in the hope that it would offer further support and pain was throbbing through his muscles in response. "It's got to be something big, otherwise they wouldn't have blocked all the signals."

"What if it's not a signal blocker?" Scott looked thoughtful. "It could be an EMP."

"I considered that, but Alan's watch is still working."

Alan polished off the rest of his coconut and tossed the carcass into the bracken behind him. There was a very happy beetle that scuttled into it, wings folded carefully under blue-black cases as it observed its new home.

"Are we going back to the circle?"

Scott was instantly on edge. "What circle?"

"When we headed up to the cliff there was a clearing," Gordon explained. "We thought it was a water source-"

"We literally spent like ten minutes talking about how much it looked like a UFO landing site."

"But there was scorch marks-"

"In fact, I don't think either of us mentioned the word water at all."

"So we were going to check it out-"

"Let alone the possibility of it being a source."

"But I started bleeding-"

"So clearly we were on different pages."

"Alan, would you shut up?" Gordon burst out. Alan, looking rather sheepish, folded his hands in his lap and fell silent. "We headed back here and planned to head back out today."

"What if you're right about the Chaos Crew?"

Alan gave them both a nervous look. Scott had a point. They had no weapons and Alan was the only one with the protective shielding in the form of his IR suit. If they ran into the Chaos Crew then they were more or less at their mercy and Gordon of all people knew how that was not something they could rely on, especially if it was Havoc they came across.

Gordon finished tying the bandage. "We have the element of surprise – they don't know we're here." He stood up, wincing as he put weight on his leg, but standing without shaking. "Alan, you coming?"

"Let me grab my suit."

With Alan half-way off down the shore – he was struggling into his uniform and finding it was a lot harder to wriggle into the armoured plating about his shoulders and chest when he didn't have the help of their launches back on Tracy Island – Gordon turned back to Scott. "I won't let them get to him."

"I'm worried about you too."

Gordon grinned. "Don't be. I'm probably immortal by now."

Scott gave him a fond look filled with exasperation. His face was drawn slightly with pain but Gordon chose not to call him out on it – when it came to being a stubborn idiot and not admitting he was hurt, Scott was a pro, and mentioning it would only cause him to clam up further which made things so much more difficult in the long run. One hand was hovering gingerly above the deep laceration, fingers stained a dark crimson, and when the wind dropped it was just about audible that his breathing was shallow and rapid.

"We'll be back in an hour, maximum."

Scott waved a hand leisurely. "Just be safe." His eyes were glazed with illness and he was noticeably paler than usual. Gordon was struck with the realisation that just because his brother was now awake and lucid, there was no guarantee that he was any better off than he had been previously. There was not even any certainty that he was healing.

"We will," Gordon assured him before heading off down the beach where Alan was still stumbling around like a zombie. His suit was clinging to his skin uncomfortably, not forming its usual seal, and the armour plating dug into his shoulders. He looked rather like an angry duck, Gordon thought, and was hard-pressed not to start laughing.

-

The trek into the forest – jungle, Alan deemed it – seemed to take a shorter time than the day before, but it was far easier to get lost. Working their way to the cliff had been easy as all it had required was following the route where the ground steadily grew steeper. In contrast, attempting to navigate a path to a set point on flat ground when everything looked the same was near impossible. It wasn't as hot as before, but a thin sheen of sweat soon coated their skin, Alan growling as he unzipped his suit. He was scratching irritably at his arm and Gordon swatted his hand.

"You're making it worse."

Alan gazed mournfully down at his mosquito bite, the skin raised an angry red. "But it itches." He surveyed their new position and frowned up at the vine-smothered trunk they were stood next to. It seemed very old and almost supernatural and he reached out to touch the crumbling bark. "Where are we?"

"On an island," Gordon quipped. "Honestly? No idea."

"There was a really tall palm tree," Alan mentioned, physically forcing his hands to stay at his sides despite the fierce urge to scratch the bite.

"Oh, thank you. That's a lot of help." Gordon swung his arms wide. "In case you haven't noticed, Alan, we are literally surrounded by fricking palm trees."

Alan was very close to hitting him. "Yeah, I know."

"Everywhere we go, there are more of them."

"Keep going. Let it all out."

"You patronising little shit…" Gordon lunged at him, tripped, and disappeared from view.

Literally. He had completely vanished.

Alan went from being varying degrees of irritated and tired, to panicked and very worried. He lurched forwards, scanning the ground in front of him for any signs of his missing brother. "Gordon!" His voice rose from a shout to more of shriek and he narrowly avoiding stumbling over the edge of the shallow ravine into which his brother had fallen. It was formed entirely out of a deep crevice forged into the soil, the mud tightly packed to avoid further collapse. Gordon was sat at the bottom, dirt smeared across his arms, chest and face. He looked very sorry for himself.

"I think I found a new route to the circle," he called up, clambering to his feet. Alan could pinpoint the exact moment that his brother's expression switched from one of vague annoyance to sheer horror. "Alan, I think you'd better get down here."

Alan tried to lower himself gently, but the ground crumbled away beneath his gloves and sent him sliding into the mud with an undignified yelp. He doubted his uniform would ever be blue again. He grabbed the hand Gordon offered him and surveyed their surroundings with a slowly dawning pang of apprehension.

What they were standing in was not a ravine at all. In fact, it was not naturally formed in the slightest. Deep marks were gouged into the mud up along the sides and the base, so wide that Gordon could stand in them. It was very obvious that they had been formed by tyres, and whatever machine had run on them, it had to be massive.

"I guess we know what the Chaos Crew are doing here," Gordon muttered. "Keeping the area clear so the Hood can build something on the down low without the GDF getting tipped off."

Alan crossed his arms. "If we follow this, will it lead us to the clearing?"

"Probably."

They exchanged a look. Alan's said this-is-an-awful-idea-let's head-back whereas Gordon's was more of a we-have-to-follow-them-this-is-our-only-way-out-of-here-God-Alan-what-is-wrong-with-you. In the end Gordon won and they made their way along the tracks cautiously, pressed close to the dirt-packed walls.

Gordon reached out and snagged the back of Alan's uniform. "Wait." He motioned for Alan to remain silent, and crept closer, keeping low to the ground.

They had found the mysterious circle, it transpired, but this was not the only thing they'd discovered. There – lounging in a small pool of water collected beneath a tiny waterfall trickling between a few large boulders – was Havoc. Fuse was perched on the top of a familiar purple machine, unusually not dressed in his armour. Something was sparking in his lap, the flash of a screwdriver glittering in the light. Havoc was laughing at his feeble attempts to fix whatever it was.

"Would you look at that," Alan whispered from behind Gordon's shoulder. "Even evil masterminds have days off to go swimming."

"They're not exactly masterminds," Gordon whispered back. "But I get your point."

They remained crouched in the mud. The slightest wrong move could alert the Chaos Crew to their presence and this would almost certainly be fatal. Gordon glared at the fresh water with renewed frustration – they were so close and yet so far.

"I guess we know what the scorch marks on the trees are from," Alan muttered. The burnt foliage was perfectly aligned with the positions of the engines on the Chaos Cruiser.

Perhaps it was the accumulation of all the stress he'd been under non-stop for the past few days, or possibly it was the heat scrambling what little logic he had left – maybe it was even a combination of the two – but for whichever reason, Gordon threw all caution to the wind and made to lunge forwards. Alan's arms looped around his chest, dragging him back.

"What the hell are you doing?" Alan hissed. His feet scrabbled in the dust with the effort to keep Gordon back – there may not have been much of a difference in height between them, but Gordon had the extra muscle mass of a swimmer and Alan was used to working in zero-gravity.

"They haven't got their armour, we can take them."

"No, we can't!"

"This is our chance to get out of here!"

"You're going to get us both killed!"

"Let me go!"

"Gordon, please, listen to me." Alan's voice rose in a desperate plea. "We have no weapons, you're injured, Scott's relying on us…we're at a disadvantage still. We've got to prioritise our lives and you know it."

Gordon slumped in his hold. "Shit," he muttered. There was a horrible nagging voice in the back of his mind that knew that Alan was right. "Right. Let's go before I do something I'll regret." He shook Alan off and stalked back along the tracks, instinctively keeping out of sight of the two criminals mere metres away.

Alan sighed. "Good talk," he whispered sarcastically to himself, and headed after his brother, footsteps carrying him to a sprint as he imagined the Chaos Crew catching sight of him. His heart was still racing even when they emerged onto the beach, a deep-set survival mode in some distant part of his mind demanding that he looked behind him for any traces of danger.

Gordon was still fuming.

Scott, who had been trying his best to fix his wrist-console, looked up in surprise as his brother stormed past and made a beeline for the ocean. "What happened?"

Alan scrubbed at the back of his neck with his glove and sighed. "We found a fresh water supply, but the Chaos Crew were there."

"What?" Scott was horror-struck. He discarded his shattered watch and propped himself up with one elbow, a pained grimace quickly disguised. "Are you okay? Tell me you didn't try and take them on."

"Surprisingly I was the voice of reason." Alan's gaze caught on Gordon's figure, very small against the vastness of the ocean. He seemed to be throwing pebbles as hard as possible at the waves where he would usually be swimming and diving down as far as possible – at least his anger hadn't distracted him from his leg injury, Alan thought. "Gordon wanted to attack. I think he thought he could steal the Chaos Cruiser or something, since they didn't have their armour on them."

Scott looked positively murderous. "He did what?"

"He did nothing, actually," Alan reminded him. "He saw reason once I held him back."

"He still put you in danger."

Alan suddenly felt very tired. "I know. You're not going to yell at him when he comes back, are you? He's been dealing with a lot," he hastened to add, "especially with you being so sick and I haven't been the greatest help and…just, give him a break."

"I know." Scott seemed genuinely concerned. Alan didn't doubt that he was. "I won't have a go at him, I promise." They watched Gordon sink to the ground, waves splashing about him like old friends. "You should go talk to him."

"What about you? He won't listen to me."

"You're the Terrible Two," Scott reminded him with a wry grin. "Go on."

Gordon was sat in the sea, waves spilling about his chest. It was the closest he could get to swimming, Alan supposed. The sky was more of a cloudy grey than it was blue, and the ocean appeared to have responded in turn, deepening to more of angry navy than crystal green as if it was reflecting Gordon's mood. He seemed to have more of a desolate sadness about him now, rather than the soul-consuming mix of rage and frustration of before.

Alan peeled off his suit and left it higher up the beach where it would be safe from the waves and came to sit down next to him. "Hey," he greeted softly.

"Hey." Gordon gaze was stony. Alan tracked his eyes to the reef and cringed. If looks could kill, then there would be a whole shoal of fish floating belly up right now.

"Want to talk?"

"Not really."

"I was being polite - you don't actually have a choice."

Gordon buried his face in his hands and groaned. "Fine. I was an idiot, you were right, we're back where we started again. Happy now?"

Alan frowned. "We're not totally back where we started. We know they're here now for sure, and we also know why. If we had weapons, then it would easy to take them out." He thought about this. "Well, not easy per se, but…"

"Weapons," Gordon was whispering, as though it was a precious secret that could threaten the lives of thousands. "Weapons," he repeated, turning to Alan and shaking his brother. "You're a genius!"

"Thanks, but…uh…why?"

Gordon was too caught up in his own thoughts to register the question. He sprang to his feet, shaking water all over Alan like a soggy dog. "We just need to create a distraction, then we wouldn't necessarily need major things like our ships. You're good at building things from scratch! We have the coral to use as a knife to sharpen wood."

"What, like a spear?"

Gordon's eyes had an evil glint. "Exactly," he growled, clapping his hands together. "Remember when we first got here, and I was plotting?"

Alan tried to think back. He failed. "Sure."

"Never mind. The point is that I have a plan. We just need to build a few things first."

They stood in the water staring at each other incredulously. There was something different to the island – for the first time in a long while, they had hope.

"Oh my god," Gordon whispered. "This might actually work!"

Alan gave him a tearful smile. "We're going home."


	6. Chapter Six

Here's the problem with developing a successful heist – there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration and therefore just as many if not more complications that could arise with the original plan. Gordon was well used to plotting and was terrifyingly skilful at it, but when there were lives on the line, he couldn't afford to be sloppy or laidback at any single moment. He gathered his information together, sorted through it and had a long think about the best way to approach it. There were so many risks that he wasn't sure where to begin, so he started with what he knew best – causing chaos – in an alternate universe, he thought dryly, he would have made a good member of the Chaos Crew.

Another important factor when plotting is to choose your spot carefully. Gordon usually skulked on the beach on the far side of Tracy Island where no-one was likely to disturb him, and he could dive down to the darker waters to avoid yelling and drawing suspicion when he thought of a particularly good prank. Here he was forced to resort to lounging on a flat rock, the warm stone seeping into his skin as he flopped in the sun, basking like a lizard. He was currently on his back with his eyes closed, arms draped across the rock so that his fingertips brushed the damp sand below. His good leg stuck over the end, water swilling about his ankle. Every now and then Alan would appear, all inquisitive and eager to help, only to be sent away again.

This was serious business. Gordon had the skeleton of a good plan that he'd developed a few days ago but fleshing it out was trickier. His stomach growled, jolting him out of his thoughts and he sat up, flexing his sore muscles from so long laying in one spot. There was a shout higher up the beach and he turned to spot Alan waving a coconut above his head.

Gordon groaned.

"It's official," he said rather sadly to a silver fish flitting about his foot. "I hate coconut."

This was a rather distressing thought to Gordon, who had spent many a time trying out various tropical deserts and drinks that he'd seen advertised on YouTube – the majority of these experiments had failed – in which coconut featured heavily. He was craving something savoury – especially fries, for some reason – but forced himself to clamber off his rock and retrieve the coconut snack anyway.

Alan was crouched in the sand, hair stuck on end and eyes bright. He looked the embodiment of mischief and Gordon stole a glance at Scott to discover a rather exasperated-looking brother trying to comb flowers sticky with pollen out of his hair.

"But Scotty," Alan was saying, all mock innocence, "you had a flower crown. You looked adorable."

Scott growled at him. "I'm not adorable. I am the night. Fear me."

Ah yes, Gordon thought, biting down on a piece of coconut without greeting his brothers, this was a fact that not many people knew – Scott may act the tough, cool guy out on rescue, but he was, at heart, a complete dork. This point was proven by the daft smile he was trying to hide.

"Did you come up with a plan yet?" Alan had switched his attention from Scott's new hairstyle to Gordon's role in their escape from Treasure Island – minus, unfortunately, the treasure.

Gordon hesitated. "Not exactly." He took another mouthful of coconut. "I ran into some…setbacks."

"Such as?"

"Such as you've only got two people," Scott interjected. His voice carried a heavy bitterness to it and Gordon gave him a concerned look, mirrored by Alan who dropped his coconut with an uncertain thud. "I'm just saying. You could do with me there."

"Your leg is broken," Gordon pointed out. "And your chest looks like you went into a boxing ring with a bear and lost." He tried to sound more sympathetic. "You'd only hold us back and you know it."

Scott didn't look very happy about this, but Gordon had a point and they'd all accepted it. With their coconuts demolished – Alan had been forced to scamper up a tree earlier to retrieve some more, whilst Scott had watched with barely concealed terror and Gordon tried to figure out exactly how his younger brother was so skilled at climbing – they turned their attention to the half-plan Gordon had presented them with so far.

"Weapons?"

Alan raised his hand only to be spoken over by Scott. "Really? Weapons?" He pointed to the sorrowful pile of tools Alan was working with – they consisted of two pieces of sheered coral, a piece of broken glass that had washed up, and a pile of sticks with a few lengths of vine. It did paint a rather mournful picture that didn't instil much confidence and Gordon winced.

"Yes."

Alan glared at them both. "You know," he commented, "it would be nice if you could show a little faith in me." His eyes were dark with anger but there was an unlaying tone of hurt that couldn't been masked by any amount of sarcasm.

Scott sighed. "You're right." He reached out and patted Alan's back with one hand. "I'm sorry."

They stared at Gordon expectantly. Gordon raised his hands. "Hey," he protested, "I didn't say anything. Hell, I was the one who asked Al to make stuff in the first place. If that doesn't shout faith, then I don't know what does."

Alan looked doubtful but seemed to let him off the hook. He spread out his small stockpile of goods across the sand and splayed his fingers on top as if he was a street merchant showing off his rare items. "Gordon, you're our best shot." He frowned. "Literally, you kind of scare me. I've known you make a perfect hit on a tiny target from insanely far away. Are you sure you're not Hawkeye?"

Scott laughed, winced, and clapped his second hand to his chest again.

Gordon, still shooting him a concerned look, chuckled. "Yeah, sorry. The GDF are secretly SHIELD."

Alan's eyes grew wide. "That would be awesome." He visibly shook himself out of his daydreams and presented them with the first of his creations. "So I figured given we don't have guns – real or stun – and I can't make a bow and arrow with vines this thick – also the wood is too rigid – I'd make you something that you can throw and cause damage with." He lifted a long piece of wood, carefully sharpened at the end to a deadly point. Gordon hesitantly brushed a finger against it and was shocked to discover that it was just as sharp as it looked.

Scott still had his arms wrapped around himself as tightly as possible but peered at it. "Is that a spear?"

Alan nodded, grinning. "Fatality," he announced with an overexaggerated accent and mimicked an explosion with his hands. "Boom. Gordon Tracy is the winner."

"It looks like it should have good aerodynamics," Scott admitted. He was clearly itching to get his hands on the spear but that would involve relinquishing his grip on his chest which was not an option. "But looking like something and actually working are two very different things."

Gordon reached out and snagged the spear. He fixed his sights on a nearby tree, drew his arm back, took a deep breath and let go.

The spear sailed past and connected with the trunk with deadly accuracy. It stood quivering until Alan got up and retrieved it, staring at him in awe.

"Well," Gordon said cheerfully. "I'd say it works."

There was an awkward silence. "Okay then." Alan clapped his hands. "Moving on."

Alan had made quick work and his results were impressive, especially given the limited resources he had to use. A few of the things he presented them with were ridiculous, which Alan himself admitted, but there were those that had promise and Gordon's mind whirred as he thought of parts of the plan where they would work perfectly.

They had spent the entire afternoon since their discovery of the Chaos Crew plotting, building, or, in Scott's case, laying around and grumbling about how he wasn't helping enough. Alan broke the easy silence they'd fallen into with a pained squeak, frowning down at the blisters forming on his hands from working with wood for hours on end.

"Is it sunset?" He realised aloud.

Gordon opened one eye and blinked in surprise. More time had passed than he'd realised, and darkness was streaking into the sky like spilled paint across a canvas. He removed himself from his rock and set about relighting the fire which Alan came and sat down next to, explaining that he needed the light in order to keep working.

"You can take a break, you know," Gordon told him.

Alan shrugged. "I'll take a break as soon as we get off this island."

"Fair enough."

With Alan safely out of earshot, framed against the flames so that he had a fiery halo, Gordon sat down next to Scott with a sense of purpose. Scott didn't notice at first, which only served to heighten his concern. Gordon bumped their shoulders together in a friendly greeting and jolted back.

"Have you got a fever again?"

"Possibly."

"You're burning."

Scott gave him a tired smile. "Yeah, but at least I'm aware this time."

Gordon, still horrified, tore off Alan's t-shirt that he'd been borrowing – it had become drenched in the sea when a particularly large wave rudely washed over his rock – and handed it over. Scott took it and gratefully draped the cool fabric around his shoulders. He was paler than his usual tan, but there was a definite flush from the heat of fever and his hands were shaking where he held them tightly against his wound. His breathing was noticeably more ragged than before and he kept his eyes shut.

Gordon bit his lip, wrestling with his fear. "Does it hurt?" He asked softly.

Scott was very quiet. "Badly," he admitted.

This rung warning bells. Scott never admitted when he was in pain – he was, to a fault, as Virgil would always say, the very definition of a stubborn idiot. For him to admit that it hurt meant that it was worse than Gordon had originally suspected.

"Anything I can do?"

Scott's breathing hitched. He tensed and then relaxed as another wave of pain passed. "I think you've done all you can."

Gordon didn't want to admit that he was right, but there was little else he could do other than offer company. He propped his chin in one hand and stretched his legs out, wincing at the twinge of fire that rocketed up his thigh.

"How's that doing?"

Gordon thought about it. "Hurts pretty damn bad," he commented. "But I've had worse." He fell silent for a moment. "You want me to be honest?"

"It'd be appreciated."

"I don't think I'm healing. I think it's infected. Not badly, but the beginnings of one, y'know?"

Scott tipped his head back, staring at the stars that came out to dance in the skies above. They were just about visible through the palm fronds. "Trust me," he muttered darkly. "I definitely know."

Alan gave a loud shout of exultation down by the fire. The silhouette of something which resembled a vague slingshot could just be made out, held aloft with the vines dangling about his hands. He quickly moved onto his next item. Having something to work towards kept his mind busy and hands focussed on the task, keeping him from worrying too much.

"Gordon." Scott sounded serious and when Gordon looked across at him, he was staring at the fire with a touch of fear in his eyes.

"Yeah?"

Scott chose his words carefully. "If something goes wrong tomorrow…"

"It won't."

"You don't know what I was going to say."

Gordon could guarantee he wouldn't like it, but let Scott continue.

"If something goes wrong and we're stuck here still…" His gaze flickered down to the blood coating his hands. "Look, I want you to know it's okay."

"Don't."

"Just let me speak."

"Don't say it."

"Don't beat yourself up, okay? You've done everything you can and I'm proud of you. So, if it's just you and Alan that get out of here in the end, then I'm okay with that. You need to know that."

Gordon shook his head. "Stop."

"Hey, it's just a precaution. I have to tell you just in case."

"This is bullshit."

"Gordon, please." Scott tried to catch his gaze and leant forwards only to fall back with a strangled cry. Gordon was at his side in an instant.

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah," Scott gave a shaky laugh. "I know." He closed his eyes again. "Alan knows I pushed him out the way, doesn't he? He remembers."

"Yeah. Yeah, he does."

"It's not his fault. Tell him that."

"Tell him yourself."

"For fuck's sake, Gordon. Don't make this difficult."

"I'm not the one talking like I'm making deathbed confessions." Scott glared at him and he relented.

"I'm not trying to upset you."

"Really? Because you're doing a pretty good job of it."

Scott didn't answer that. He was still awake, staring at the stars, but he was trembling slightly. Whether it was from sheer exhaustion or pain was unclear and Gordon didn't want to know.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean that. But you're asking me to leave you behind and you know I can't do that."

"I'm not," Scott protested. "I'll admit I'm reckless but I'm not…look, I just want you to know that if I don't get out of here then I don't blame either of you, and I'm asking you to tell the others that I love them. Okay?"

"How am I supposed to say this is okay?"

"I don't know, you'll find a way." There was a pained sigh. "You always find a way, Gordon. I don't think I ever told you that I admired that about you – you always get back up and find a smile no matter what life throws at you. I know Virgil admires that too."

"I won't leave you behind," Gordon repeated.

"You may not have a choice."

A tree frog called from the branches behind them. Alan was humming, some distant and unknown tune. He probably wasn't even aware he was doing it.

"You still bleeding?"

Scott raised one hand. His palm and fingers were smothered in blood. "Not as bad, but yeah. Your bandages helped."

"That was mostly Alan."

Silence echoed across the beach as loudly as the waves on the reef. A whole manner of dark and terrifying questions reared their heads in Gordon's mind.

"Hey Scotty?"

"Hmm?"

He faltered. "Are you scared?"

Scott was very still. He was visibly tense in the fire-glow and the moonlight. "A little bit."

"Don't be. I'll get us out of here."

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"I know you do."

"We're International Rescue. It's our job. I'll just have to rescue you too." Scott slid further down, slumping against Gordon's shoulder. His breathing seemed very uneven and rasping. "I promise," Gordon whispered in a broken voice. "Please. I promise. Just hold on for a little longer."

It was unclear whether Alan had heard any of their conversation, but when he finally came and joined them, he paused in front of Gordon. Scott, still asleep, mumbled something and tried to roll over. Gordon caught his arm and tugged him back.

"What is it?"

Alan startled at being spoken to. "Nothing," he replied quickly. "Just…uh…here." He darted forwards, throwing his arms around Gordon's neck and hugging him tightly. Gordon blinked, taken aback, but wrapped his arms around Alan too.

"What's this for?"

"You looked like you needed it."

Not for the first time this evening, Gordon wanted to cry. Instead he forced a reassuring smile onto his face, forced back the tears, and let Alan curl up against his side.

"We're getting out of here tomorrow, right?" Alan's question was uncertain and wavering.

Gordon closed his eyes. "Yes," he promised. "All of us."

-

Here was the thing: many people tended to underestimate Gordon - normally due to his role as family prankster and the second youngest – and this worked in his favour most of the time. He accepted it - often playing the part of the jokester to the extreme - but it painted an entirely false picture - something which Virgil had chided him about in the past - because, in reality, Gordon was just as clever as the rest of his brothers. Sure, he wasn't like John with the space monitor's unmatched skills in languages, coding and numbers, or even Virgil's musical and artistic talents, but when it came to schemes and improvisation then he was in his element. Thinking on his feet was his forte and there was a reason that he was quite possibly the most dangerous of the Tracys – minus maybe Scott – when he was truly angry. The Chaos Crew had torn them apart and had almost killed him twice now and Gordon was furious.

It was high time, he decided, that they met their comeuppance.

Morning broke with a rush of a gold across the horizon, sun rays cascading across the treetops and casting halos about the palm fronds. For a sky so full of peace, it seemed very ironic that they were preparing to attack a pair of international criminals with little more than their wits and a few hastily carved weapons – although Alan was very proud of his slingshot and claimed that the amount of blisters littering his hands was entirely worth it. Fear appeared to have dissipated into nervous tension and apprehensive energy that had them eager to get going.

"Hang on," Alan spoke up, half-way through Gordon's lengthy explanation of their strategy. "Why am I the distraction?" He looked somewhat put out. "You're the one with the bad leg."

"I've had more run ins with them, I know their fighting style better. Anyway, you're better at climbing trees."

"That's…actually, kind of a fair point." Alan returned to fiddling with his slingshot. "Carry on."

There's a moment that you experience before a grand event – a point which you have been working towards for so long that it seems inconceivable that it has arrived and all your effort and time will come down to your actions and their results at this one time – when the realisation hits that this is actually real. The frustration, the anger, the hurt and all the excitement and enthusiasm along the way – the journey, no matter how you set about it originally – ends here. For Alan, this event was their attack on the Chaos Crew. Until this moment it hadn't dawned on him that the consequences of his actions could be fatally serious, and he found himself struck with an overwhelming sense of panic and a little bit of dark horror. The beach which had become so achingly familiar to him suddenly appeared more hostile and alien than the oceans of Europa.

He stood in the centre of the sandy slopes and stared at the rise of forest in front of him. He was apprehensive, sure, but there was something else scorching along with his heartbeat, racing, and he couldn't quite identify what it was. The fear of something going wrong was matched only by the terror that they'd left it too late.

There were so many things to say, and many of them Alan couldn't find the words for. He simply had to trust that his family knew.

Gordon was gone. He'd left around half an hour before, spear resting neatly on his shoulder as he'd disappeared into the trees with a flash of a confident grin – this had been a complete mask as he was secretly trying not to throw up or dive into the sea to swim off his nerves, but Alan didn't need to know this.

If the world was on his side or not, Alan wasn't sure, but he had to hope. He suppressed the tremors of anxiety and the logical part of his brain that pointed out how slim their chances of success were and plunged into the jungle – he'd never been one to back down from a challenge, or a mission, and he wasn't about to start now.

Running was a hobby that he'd picked up as a young teenager, during his first year of high school before they'd moved to Tracy Island. He could recall Scott being on a cross-country team when he'd been in school, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to the rest of his family when Alan started going for runs. Now, sprinting through the foliage, the steady pounding of his feet against the forest floor was familiar and almost comforting. The ache in his muscles as he slowed to a halt could easily have been from the climb back up the steps to the villa and he fixed his thoughts on the idea that they'd be returning home soon as he made his way to the tallest of the palm trees; the same one that he had recalled and pointed out the previous day.

Climbing, whilst he was good at it, was hard work, and he clung to the bark, dropping his head forwards to rest against the wood with a dull thump. He was sweating, the heat sticky and oppressive despite the early hour, and his breathing was quick. There was a dull burning in his arms and legs where his muscles were constantly tensed to maintain his position on the tree. Somewhere, deep in his mind, a little voice whispered Tarzan, and he was struck with the urge to laugh. What was his life? He was half-way up a palm tree in the middle of nowhere about to drop an insanely heavy branch on the ship of two criminals – this, he had to admit, sounded pretty badass – and, somehow, he wasn't questioning any of it.

"Why do I always get the hard job?" He muttered, scaling the tree a little further. The branch in question forked off from the trunk leaving a flat and broad patch of wood where he could sit comfortably without fear of falling off. He settled into it, drawing his knees up to avoiding his feet dangling over the edge where the blue of his boots could be spotted easily by anyone walking below who happened to look up. It was strangely peaceful up here – separate from the rest of the world in almost every way – with only the natural world for company. The forest stretched out as far as the eye could see, splintered by glimpses of golden sand and royal blue sea. Leaves formed an ocean of green around him, interrupted by bursts of colour as flowers bloomed across the canopy. Alan reached out and traced the edges of one rich-red petal, yellow pollen scattering across his fingers. An iridescent beetle scuttled across his boot and he leant back against the trunk with a sigh. This was the most at ease he'd felt in days.

There was no sign of Gordon which he took to be a good thing. At least he knew that his brother hadn't been caught.

"Alright," he murmured to the inquisitive bird hovering nearby. The rainbow glow of feathers cascading down its back and blur of wings suggested it was a type of hummingbird. "Let's get this show on the road."

His task was as follows: cause as much damage a possible to the Chaos Cruiser without targeting the engines. This had to be accomplished from above for several reasons, but most importantly so that Gordon could attack from the side unnoticed, both providing cover and maintaining the element of surprise. The obnoxious purple craft was still nowhere to be seen, but Alan could hear the distant throb of engines and could be certain that it would come this way given the various tricks and traps Gordon had laid out in the woods in the early hours.

He crawled out along the branch and lay down flat, limbs dangling hazardously over the edge as he curled around the bark like a serpent. Forcing himself not to look down was difficult, especially given he knew how high he had to be – he'd been climbing for a long time – but he managed to free the substantial pieces of razor-sharp coral from his belt and begin the slow process of sawing through the wood.

It took him over half an hour to get half-way through. The wood was thick and unforgiving, and he lost count of how many pieces of coral he'd tossed to the forest floor having found them go blunt or crumble into a light powder after mere minutes of work. His hands were rubbed raw and painful when he flexed his fingers. At some point he'd reached up to scratch his nose and now when he went cross-eyed there was a smear of red there – a quick inspection of his hands revealed that he was, in fact, bleeding. He missed his gloves. He'd had to admit defeat and recognise that they were ruined beyond repair last night.

"Come on, Gordon," he muttered, daring to move from clinging onto the branch with all four limbs to a carefully balanced sitting position. He had a better view of the forest from here, and from what he could see, the Chaos Cruiser and its crew were nowhere in sight. He cast a worried look up at what little he could glimpse of the sky through the upper canopy. "Where are you?"

-

Gordon Tracy was not a happy camper.

He had hit a whole list of problems and had come to the only logical conclusion he could – the universe hated him.

To be fair, there were probably a few reasons for that; all the Scouts incidents, that time he'd tried to prank Virgil in public in middle school and had made his brother cry in front of everyone – this had made him a target of bullying for the next three years and Gordon would forever feel guilty about it – or when he'd accidentally gotten John arrested along with him on what was supposed to be a fun family vacation – this was a long story for a different time – and that was to name just a few. Gordon's problem was that it wasn't only him that the universe was punishing here, and he was pretty damn sure that Alan had never done anything so bad that it warranted this level of reparation – Scott was a different story because there was that one year of university where he'd come home for two weeks in the middle of the semester and refused to talk to anyone; he'd lived entirely off pizza rolls and Gordon had walked in on him crying whilst watching The Notebook…actually, now Gordon thought about it, he'd probably just been going through a really bad breakup.

His leg, for starters, was really beginning to piss him off.

He clenched a hand around the bandage and hissed at it. "So help me, I need to run. Useless human body." This was said in a particular tone of voice that suggested he considered being human beneath him, as if he'd been a dragon or something equally as cool in a previous life. He wiped the sweat from his face, took a deep breath until his chest hurt, and continued to crouch in the bushes.

The Chaos Crew had driven past three of his traps in the past five minutes. Unless he thought of something fast, they were going to avoid Alan entirely and his cover would be blown – he knew for a fact that without the element of surprise there was exactly zero chance of taking them out.

"How did you miss all of them? That's got to be against the odds, surely?"

His gaze caught on the trail of dead leaves and debris that the Cruiser was leaving in its wake and a slow grin, evil in glamour, dawned.

"Ah yes," he said cheerfully to himself. "That's more like it."

It could be said that Gordon had a complicated relationship with fire. There had been many incidents during his childhood which had led his entire family to despair and had his chemistry teacher pleading with the Head to introduce a Bunsen Burner ban in all lessons Gordon attended. Now, years later, he was more used to fighting fires than he was creating them, but there was a reason why his schoolfriends had believed him to be a Slytherin – spoiler: he wasn't – and that cunning streak was not about to go to waste.

Both Havoc and Fuse liked fire. It could even be said that they revelled in it or, to be more precise, in the chaos that it brought with it. What they did not like, however, were the roaring flames that suddenly shot along the tracks behind them and exploded across the rear door of the Cruiser. Alarms shrieked, the Cruiser lurched sideways, and Havoc yanked the wheel to the left, sending them on a new path.

"What the hell was that?"

This question went unanswered.

Havoc narrowed her eyes. For a split second, she could've sworn that she had glimpsed a shadow flitting back into the heart of the forest. She put it down to the glare of the flames reflecting in the windows.

In the ferns on the far side of the trail, Gordon was flopped on his back gasping for breath and trying not to cry out at the burns that now streaked up his forearms. He clenched his fists around the spear and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Shit."

He opened his eyes and tried to take a breath. He felt like his wrists were on fire, but he'd done his job and the Cruiser had changed paths.

"It's up to you now, Alan."

-

Alan was sprawled across a branch and singing Disney songs whilst there was no one around to hear him. He'd begun with humming Imagine Dragons, but then he'd got a tune caught in his head and one thing had led to another. The sudden roar of an engine and the raging inferno that clung to its source came out of the blue and he startled into action.

The coral in his hand slipped, sheering a deep cut across his skin and tumbling down towards the windscreen of the Chaos Cruiser below. Alan froze, heart hammering in his chest as he waited to see if they noticed. The Cruiser shuddered to a halt.

"Oh god, oh god, not good."

Alan held his breath. If he stayed where he was then the plan was over, but if he moved then they would surely see him.

They needed to get off the island. Scott's life depended on it.

Alan drew himself up, reached for the final piece of coral and attacked the final few pieces of wood attaching the branch to the tree. His hands were slippery with blood welling up along the cut and he kept losing his grip on the coral. The Cruiser still wasn't moving. His heartbeat was pounding in his head. Just a few moments longer, he silently begged.

The branch gave way and smashed to the ground, shattering the air as it collided with the Cruiser with an ear-splitting crash. Shards of glass careered through the sky and Alan flung himself back against the trunk to avoid being caught up in it.

A furious scream echoed from below. Alan snuck a peek and discovered that the roof of the craft was almost completely caved in, streaked with torn metal and shattered glass. Havoc and Fuse were struggling to free themselves from the cockpit, scowling glares scouring the treeline for any signs of the culprit. It was the perfect moment for Gordon to strike.

Alan blinked. He wasn't seeing things – there was definitely no sign of his brother, and to make matters worse, Havoc and Fuse were almost free. If they got away, then they had no chance.

"Here goes nothing," Alan muttered, looping the final vine around the tree and throwing himself into the void.

Falling is a strange feeling. It is both terror and exhilaration simultaneously. It's the scream at the top of a rollercoaster, but also the soul-consuming terror when you realise there's no escape left – it is the scenario with only one option – landing. The trick is to find a way within seconds to decide whether you will land or crash.

Alan plummeted to the ground. It was about half-way down that he began to seriously question whether the vines would hold, but it was too late.

From the Chaos Crew's point of view, he seemed to appear out of nowhere. The vines caught, snagged, and slowed his descent to the point that he landed on the wreckage of the roof with an intimidating thud.

"Oh, hey guys," he greeted with a mock salute. "Fancy seeing you here."

-

Gordon had a very high pain tolerance. This was a fact and had been one ever since he was a young boy. Despite this, he was getting very close to his limit.

He was also very lost.

"I had one job," he was muttering venomously, "and that was following the flaming purple machine. How the hell did I mess that up?"

In his defence, his mind was foggy with pain and every step sent agony streaking up his leg and across his wrists. He was never going to complain about the smell of Brains' burn salve ever again.

There was a distant shriek of fury followed by the terrifying sound of an explosion. Gordon skidded to a halt, panic pounding a symphony of horror in his mind. He sped around and took off sprinting as fast as possible in the direction of the commotion.

-

Alan was in trouble.

By trouble, he meant that he, as ever, had plunged headfirst into danger without a plan and now found himself unstuck. He was relying on his self-defence training that Kayo had drilled into him continually for months, but then Fuse had detonated one of his charges and Alan had been blown clear of the cruiser. He landed on his back heavily in the bracken and something crunched. His vision was filled with a white glare and he rubbed at his eyes, blinking desperately.

"Where did you come from?"

Havoc sounded vaguely amused, as if she had just swatted a particularly irritating fly; bothersome but harmless. Alan's vision cleared just in time to spot her raising the stun gun – he hoped that thing was set to stun, anyway – and rolled to the side as she brought it crashing down. Electricity shattered the ground, leaping towards him. Alan shot out a foot, flipping himself over to land in a crouch, breathing heavily and shooting her a wide-eyed look.

"That's," he dodged again, "not," another duck, "very," a jump, "nice." He knocked Fuse's feet out from under him and flipped out of reach. Havoc gave a yelp of pain as he caught her in a hit meant to catch her at a pressure point but slipped too far to the left. She flung herself at him, face torn with fury, and Alan stumbled, crashing to the ground in a pile of tangled limbs.

"Get off me." His voice rose to more of a plea as a knee collided with his ribs and something heavy smashed into his temple. He could taste warm copper filling his mouth and sluggishly raised his arms in a feeble attempt to block her blows. A crackle of electricity met his ears and he twisted his head to glimpse another of the stun-rays raised above him, prepared to come crashing down with deadly accuracy. "No, no, no." He struggled to free himself but Fuse, who had apparently donned his armour, pinned him down. "Get away!" Alan was not ashamed to admit he was panicking now, lashing out wildly, but the pulses of energy crackled ever closer, burning with heat that sizzled the air.

"Hey!" A new figure burst into view, colliding with both the Chaos Crew and knocking them clear away from Alan. A blur of limbs and furious shouts were muffled as Alan tried to scramble to his feet, the world spinning dangerously. A hand appeared in his line of sight and he tracked it back to the owner.

"I told you," Gordon announced with a grin. "I've got your back."

Alan gave a breathless laugh and spat the blood from his mouth. Gordon shot him a concerned look.

"You okay?"

"Sure. Quick question – was me getting the hell beaten out of me part of your plan?"

"Not exactly, but then again," Gordon raised his wrists, the skin raw and blistered, "neither was this."

Fuse had clambered to his feet. "International Rescue's here!"

Havoc scoffed. "They're not International Rescue right now. They're just two of the Tracy brothers."

Gordon tossed his spear from one hand to the other and threw his head back with manic laughter. His voice was dripping with dark promise. "You're right. But that makes us so much more dangerous."

"Time for the next part of the plan?" Alan whispered.

Gordon gave a barely palpable nod. "I've got this."

Alan looked at the dark glint to his brother's eyes and found himself realising that he had no doubts that Gordon did have this. He started edging towards the Chaos Cruiser, Havoc and Fuse's attention caught by the deadly wielding of a certain spear in their direction. During their many years of working together to pull off the best pranks and torturing their brothers as they saw fit – essentially as long as they had been deemed the Terrible Two – Gordon had perfected the art of distraction so that Alan could sneak into places, and this familiar method did not let them down. The only snag Alan hit was when the Chaos Cruiser hesitantly tried to run a retina scan, before a burst of sorrowful static from the damage to the delicate wiring in the ceiling panels had the doors opening anyway.

The cockpit was bigger than Alan had expected. He'd been imaging it as a small, cramped space, smothered in black and red décor as any mediocre villain's lair should be. Instead it was open and bright, with flickering panels of varying uses. He bypassed the one marked with 'weaponry and defence' in block capitals, however tempting it was – what self-respecting teenager could honestly say that they had not considered pressing an unknown big red button at some point in their life – in favour of reaching the communications hub. This, clearly, was Havoc's forte; the smaller control panel was much more complex and from the little that Alan had been able to sneakily listen to during Kayo's conversations with the GDF he knew that she was the tech expert of the two. Luckily, Alan was also skilled with computers, and made short work of firing up the radio. While he was at it he brought down the signal-jammer and almost cried with relief when his wrist-console – once again strapped to his arm just in case their original plan had failed and they'd needed to think on their feet – lit up with the International Rescue symbol.

His hand hovered over the transmission button. As soon as he pressed it, he would bring the Hood down on their location and there was no guarantee that this would even work. His gaze flickered to the window where Gordon was visible, ducking out of reach and leaping back in to land a blow of his own. He was obviously tiring, and Alan shook his concerns away and flicked a switch, pressing down on the button.

"Calling International Rescue."

-

Gordon had not partaken in many fights in his life. This was surprising for a number of reasons, such as his tendency to flirt with anything on two legs that resembled a human – this had thrown him into trouble with numerous angry partners in the past – and his general ability to annoy anyone in his vicinity. The few scraps he had been caught up in, however, had not always ended in his favour and, with the exception of two occasions, had always required a certain brother or two – with his shoulders and sheer muscle mass, Virgil usually looked intimidating enough to scare off Gordon's opponents, but if this failed then Scott was a good person to have in your corner given his Air Force background and general don't-screw-with-my-family-or-you'll-regret-it vibes – and would step in despite his protests that he didn't need saving,God guys, if I'm going to get my ass kicked at least let it happen without the embarrassment of having to be rescued by my brothers, honestly, so uncool – this was usually followed by a heavy sigh and a you're bleeding, Gordon which was met with oh, so I am. Cool. Uh…do you have a plaster for that?

Currently, he was holding his own. While the Chaos Crew's armour was usually helpful and protected them, it was now a hindrance, preventing them from dodging blows and making their movements clumsy. Fuse didn't seem very invested in the fight and even looked mildly concerned when Gordon stumbled – he made a note of this for later; apparently Fuse was the softer one – but Havoc was using him as her personal punching bag.

"Wow," Gordon rasped, blocking Havoc's fist. "Someone has a lot of anger built up. That's not healthy. You should, uh," he dropped into a roll, using his spear as a support to flip himself quickly back to his feet, "you should get some therapy."

Havoc snarled at him and lunged.

"Really, I recommend it." Gordon gave a startled cry as something electric sparked into life around Havoc's fists and collided with his shoulder. Heat flooded down his arm, sheering across the burns as he flung himself away, cradling his wrist to his chest instinctively. Too late he realised that this had left him wide open to a new attack and then Havoc was right there.

Oh God, he realised hysterically, I'm losing.

"Gordon!"

Alan looked furious. He was about as intimidating as a wet puppy, but Gordon appreciated the sentiment all the same.

Havoc gave a sharp bark of cruel laughter and tossed something silver and orb-like to the ground. Gordon scarcely had time to blink before suddenly he was surrounded with repeating images of himself and Havoc.

"That is trippy," he commented, half-dazed. He was fairly certain he had a concussion. There was definitely something warm dripping down his face and he could taste copper. His ribs were aching with dull pain.

Alan froze. Havoc was still bearing down on Gordon with no sign of stopping and Gordon was too out of it to pull himself out of the way.

Fuse, oddly enough, looked concerned. His head was tilted to the side as though he was listening for something.

"I don't know which one's real!" Alan shouted, frantically trying to figure out which were holograms, and which one wasn't.

Gordon sounded vaguely panicked. "Just pick one!"

"Err…Havoc," Fuse began, but he was cut off by a beautiful, oh-so-familiar and very, very welcome sound.

The roar of engines exploded into life around them, and Thunderbird Two came crashing down with a blaze of fire like an avenging angel. The illusions shattered into pieces and Havoc, just about audible over the din, shrieked with fury like a banshee. Fuse was dragging her back to the Chaos Cruiser despite her protests.

"Yeah, that's right!" Alan waved a fist after them. "That's what you get for messing with the Tracys!"

With Alan safe and Thunderbird Two rising above him in a protective cloud of blurry green, Gordon decided this was the perfect time to pass out.


	7. Chapter Seven

Over the course of his twenty-odd years on Planet Earth, Virgil had spent an exorbitant amount of time in hospitals. The earliest memories he could recall in white-washed waiting rooms were of Alan's birth, the time that he'd broken his leg following the skateboarding incident, and then the occasion that would rip their family apart and force them to put themselves back together, piece by broken piece. These hospital visits were due to a variety of reasons, some down to him – many of their childhood escapades had ended in disaster, and, more recently, that time in Berlin about which John, the only witness, was sworn to secrecy – and others down to his family – his brothers were complete disasters at the best of times and International Rescue had only served to heighten their risk of injury. So it was that sitting in a hard-backed chair in the corner of a hospital room, eyes fixed on the bed at the centre, was not a new experience.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump.

"Sorry." John looked vaguely amused. He also had the appearance of a zombie – ever since the realisation that something had gone very irrevocably wrong out in the Atlantic, he had been working non-stop. The second day had marked his descent from Five, with EOS remarking cautiously to Virgil that their space-monitor hadn't slept in over forty-eight hours. Now, with dark circles under his eyes and a ghostly pallor to his skin, John looked as though he himself needed a stay in one of the hospital beds. Virgil had a good mind to tell him so. Instead he resorted to pushing out a second chair wordlessly.

"How are patients one and two?"

"More like Three and Four," John replied and promptly collapsed into laughter at his own joke. He appeared to be drunk on tiredness, which, when mixed with the overwhelming relief that their brothers were now safe, made for somewhat hysterical results. He tried to quieten his chuckles, slid down in his chair until he could safely rest his head on the top without smashing it against the wall, and attempted to calm himself. "Gordon's still asleep, and Alan's…" A flicker of frustration crossed his face. "He won't stay in bed."

Virgil laughed at that. "Wow, it's like we're kids again."

Alan, who had suffered no serious injuries beyond bruising and dehydration, could very well have been treated on Tracy Island, but given that Gordon and Scott had needed a hospital on the mainland, it had made sense to admit him along with them. He'd slept solidly for the first few hours – almost a full day, actually – and had promptly awoken with immediate complaints about the drip attached to him. With the drip removed, he had tucked into a meal with gusto not usually addressed to hospital food. Now, told to remain in bed, he was making as much of a nuisance of himself as physically possible – this included, but was not limited to: demanding all the flavours of jello available, talking the ear off anyone in the room, attempting to escape in a cart of sheets (the nurse pushing it had proceeded to scream for a solid five minutes when she found him despite his best attempts to calm her down) and a second try at fleeing when the first failed that involved a rope of sheets and blankets out of the window (John put a stop to that one) – and, when John had left him last, was sitting mournfully on the centre of his bed pleading for an update on Gordon and Scott. This, incidentally, was why John was here.

"How's Scott?"

Virgil hesitated. He'd stolen the med-chart off the end of the bed and copied all of the information onto his Tablet – he trusted the hospital staff, but when it was someone he cared about on the line then he preferred to know the actual details rather than the watered-down version that was usually fed to families, no matter how painful it may be. John was very much like him in this regard, so instead of answering he sent across the readouts, copying in Brains at the same time.

John flicked through the notes. "Well," he sighed, stretching his legs out in front of him and yawning. "I guess we're in for a long wait."

Virgil shot him a dark look. "You don't say."

"Sorry."

There was a sigh. "God, I just…I really thought that we'd get them back and everything would be alright, you know? Which was incredibly naïve of me, but there we go."

John patted him on the back. "I know."

"How are you so good at keeping it together?"

"I'm a robot with no soul."

"John."

"You want the truth?"

"Yes."

John stared at the hospital monitors, tracking the rising and falling of the lights and whirring of the machines that ran tiny tremors through the floor tiles. There was something other-worldly about it all, as though he'd been thrust into a new universe where nothing was quite as it seemed.

"Honestly," he said softly, "I don't know. Because I'm used to it, I suppose. People call International Rescue from horrific situations, sometimes children even, and they need to hear that it's going to be alright. I'm just pretending it's another rescue. In a way, it is. Alan needs to hear that everything's going to be fine and I don't want to force you into that situation."

"Thanks."

"Don't. Besides, you've always been awful at acting."

Virgil laughed. It didn't ring true, but it was something to break the silence.

"I'm still worried," John murmured after a moment.

They stared at the hospital bed.

"Yeah," Virgil answered, equally softly. "Me too."

-

Gordon couldn't remember the trip to the hospital. He couldn't even recall ending up in one of the emergency beds in Two's Med-Bay. Actually, this was a partial lie – he could remember snatches – only bits and pieces such as Alan shouting something, voice raised in concern, or Virgil whispering and a second voice, torn with pain, replying – but nothing of great importance. The journey from the island – hell, from the clearing itself – was a vague blur of exhaustion and dull agony.

Waking up was equally confusing.

Everything was unnaturally bright, scientific in nature, reminding him all too much of a testing lab: white walls, clear panels for floor tiles and piercing lights set deep into the ceiling. A lone window stood to attention just to the left of his bed, and a merciful flash of blue sky was visible through the blinds. Gordon shuffled upright as far as possible, bruises flaring into life across his back and ribs in a symphony of fire. He gave a pained hiss through clenched teeth, flailing for a handhold as his arms buckled beneath his weight and threatened to plunge him back onto the mattress. One hand fumbled at the wall before colliding heavily with something soft and very much alive.

It was hard to say who was more surprised. Gordon retrieved his hand with a startled yelp, lost his fight with gravity and collapsed back into bed with a thump audible even over the steady whirring of the monitors around him. Meanwhile, John startled awake at the hand suddenly smacking into his head. He wasn't entirely conscious yet, still caught up in the fogginess of sleep, but was aware enough to recognise that he was falling. Arms waved wildly to no avail and he landed on the floor with a massive crash.

Gordon poked his head over the side of the bed and peered down at his brother. "Are you okay?" He croaked, voice rough from the effects of dehydration and sleep.

John took a moment. Whether he was recovering from the shock of such an awakening, or simply gathering his thoughts was unclear, but Gordon took the opportunity to survey him and collect his own opinions. His brother had always been the palest of them all - even in the final days of long summer months spent outside exploring the wilderness in the dry Kansas heat that should by all accounts have left him with a warm tan – but now he looked ill with it. He had dark circles to rival those of a raccoon, and his eyes were still bloodshot in a way that could not have come simply from a deep sleep.

What Gordon would have liked to say was jeez Johnny, you look terrible, but when he opened his mouth all that emerged was a pitiful cough. It seemed as though his voice had finally given up on him. John, who still remained a mute, wordlessly passed him a cup of ice-chips and Gordon batted away his hands as his brother attempted to help him. After sucking on the ice and proceeding to tip his head back and swallow the melted water like a shot, simply to annoy John as much as humanly possible, Gordon finally found himself on speaking terms again.

"What happened to you?"

John stared at him. It began to get a little creepy, and Gordon waved a hand in front of his face, just to check if he'd zoned out or not – this had happened previously, one notable incident resulting in a broken glass, a traumatised-looking businessman and Scott laughing somewhat hysterically for a full five minutes.

"Are you…" John trailed off, took a deep breath to visibly calm himself, and tried again. His hands were trembling in his lap, where he had settled back into the chair. "Are you seriously asking me that?"

Gordon rubbed at his temples. He still had the snatches of a headache clawing at his skull and tiredness was pegging at the corners of his vision, despite an unknown time spent sleeping. "Yes?"

"You're something else, you really are."

"I mean…"

"You've been missing for a week. A week, Gordon! And the first thing you do when you wake up is ask how I am. Unbelievable."

"I'm very confused right now. Should I be apologising? What's going on here? This is the kind of thing I'd expect from Virgil, not you. Maybe you're the one who should be in a hospital bed. Wait, it could be your alien tendencies…they're finally appearing! This is a scientific wonder, someone get Brains, woah-" He was cut off by an armful of older brother colliding with him. John wrapped his arms around him fiercely and clung on tightly. Gordon didn't hesitate and relaxed into the hold, dropping his head to John's shoulder and breathing in the familiar scent of home; of the washing-powder that Kayo insisted they used, of the traditional paperback books John collected, of cinnamon and apples from Brains' cooking experiments, the salt-air of Tracy Island and everything that had him wanting to cry with longing. He fought back the suspicious burning that scorched his eyes and sniffed, clinging at the fabric of the loose jumper John wore and trying to assure himself that this was real.

"I'm not going anywhere," John whispered.

Gordon gave a wet laugh. "Psychic."

"Definitely."

John gave him a final squeeze.

"Dude," Gordon whispered, turning his head to be sure that his brother heard every single word in perfect clarity. "You need to eat more."

John gave a surprised bark of laughter and finally released him. While Gordon had been partially joking, there had definitely been some truth to his statement – their IR uniforms adjusted automatically so that they fitted perfectly, and the spacesuits even more so to guarantee a complete seal – usually this was a positive thing and made suiting up for rescues a lot easier, but it also meant that it was harder to keep track of things such as consuming enough calories when they lost so many on missions. Brains had tried to install medical-scanners that would send feedback constantly to the monitors on Tracy Island, but John had refused this and there had been no point in trying to force him – Brains was a genius, but John was more than capable of hacking in and looping the information so that his own readouts never reached home. The point was this – Gordon was sure his brother hadn't been quite so skinny the last time he'd seen him.

"I'm asking for extra Jello," he decided aloud, "and you're having some."

John was either too tired to argue or too relieved to see Gordon awake, but either way he didn't protest. "Alright." He hesitated, one foot hovering above the floor, as though he was wearing one of Alan's hover-boots. "I promised Virgil that I'd let him know when you woke up. You going to be alright here by yourself?"

"Johnny, I'm in hospital, not a nursery." Gordon smiled innocently at him. "I'll be fine."

John narrowed his eyes. "Stay here," he ordered, with a pointed finger for good measure.

Gordon blinked. "As if I could get into trouble when I'm in bed."

"I distinctly remember when you secured your mattress to explode feathers over me when I leant on it a certain way to check if your fever had gone down that time you caught the flu."

"Okay, I'll give you that one. Actually, that's kind of impressive. I did all that and I had the flu. I'm obviously a genius."

"You're one hundred percent deflecting with humour, so I'll interrogate you later on whatever is bothering you besides the obvious, but right now…" John sighed, suddenly looking much older than his early-twenties. For the first time Gordon reflected on how much stress and heartache their disappearance must have put their family through and found himself wanting to drag his brother back for another hug. Well, that and pull a few pranks. Emotions made him nervous. That was a whole other ballgame that he had no doubts a therapist would love to get into.

"Right now…?" He prompted.

John shook himself. "Right now, I'm gonna find Virg. Anything you want?"

"Nope. I'm good." Gordon managed to keep his mouth shut until John had one foot out the door before he broke and called after him. "Wait, John!"

"Yes?"

"Is Alan awake yet? I mean, I'm guessing he and Scott are okay because you're here with me, but…is he awake?"

"He's with Virgil." John gave him a sympathetic look. "Trust me, it took us a long time to persuade him to stay there and not come and disturb you already."

"Oh…cool."

"Hey. Gordo. Look at me." Gordon reluctantly met his gaze. "I don't know what you're feeling right now, but we will work through this, okay? I mean it."

"Yeah. I know."

John seemed reluctant to leave, but Gordon rolled over and tugged the sheet back over his head, a visual sign that their conversation was over. He stayed there until he heard a soft sigh accompanied by slowly fading footsteps.

Time worked differently in hospitals. Well, not literally, but there was definitely a certain sense of detachment that had hours passing like seconds and minutes passing like days. Gordon could have sworn that he'd only been under the sheet for a moment, but it was warm and dark, and he closed his eyes, relaxing into the hold of the mattress and startled back into awareness where the world was dim sunlight rather than harsh LEDs. Instead of having the bed to himself, a hand was clasped to his ankle and a head was pillowed on the mattress by his side.

It was around seven, Gordon gathered from the golden sunbeams falling across the room. The window was open, revealing a sky brimming with candyfloss pinks and rich reds, speckled with the soaring sights of seagulls. A few sparks of stars were beginning to catch alight in the darker heights, and he took a moment to drink in the familiar sight before turning his attention to the mop of tousled blond hair and soft snores. He fought back a smile.

"Hey Alan."

There was no response. Gordon reached down and ruffled his brother's hair further, trying not laugh at the mess. Alan, still partially asleep, pushed his head further into the touch and snuffled into the sheets, one arm flailing to land heavily across Gordon's waist and ow, okay, that hurt.

"Allie, can you just…yeah, move your arm…Alan."

Alan startled upright, blinking rapidly as he tried to recognise his surroundings. Apparently he had subconsciously decided that Gordon wasn't a threat from voice alone, because he didn't raise his fists – Virgil had been on the other end of a sleep-induced punch before, and damn, Alan may be the youngest, but he was by no means weak.

"Oh finally," Alan announced in a surprisingly sarcastic tone given he'd only just woken up and still had creases from the bedsheets imprinted onto his cheek. "You're awake."

Gordon considered shoving him off the bed. "Where's John? Actually, scratch that, where's my frigging Jello? Also, recap, real quick, now go."

"Right now?"

"Yep. Catch me up on everything."

"Okay." Alan clambered out of the chair and onto the mattress completely, shoving at Gordon's legs until his brother shifted over. He drew his feet up and settled into a cross-legged position, top raising up as he stretched to reveal a stark white bandage. "So Virgil and John made the entrance of the century…"

"Wrong. That was Kayo, six months ago." Alan glared at him. "Okay, I'm sorry. Carry on."

"You just sort of collapsed and freaked us all out. I don't really remember much after that because Virgil was fussing and I was trying to get him to tell me what was going on with you and then we got Scott back and…well, that's a whole other thing. Anyway, I woke up here after about ten hours, and other than dehydration and a load of bruises, I'm fine, so they let me wander around for a bit. Virgil wouldn't let me out of his sight at first, but John reasoned with him, so ta da, here I am."

"Sorry, I'm still caught up on the part where you said Scott was a whole other story. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Alan fell silent. He was picking at the sheets, shoulders hunched as though he expected to be attacked any second. Something was so irrevocably wrong about everything that Gordon wanted to tear out of the room and start sprinting as fast and as far as possible, but running away from his problems had never been his style, so instead he shuffled upright and batted Alan's hands away from the cotton until he finally looked up.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," Alan finally burst out. His eyes were glistening suspiciously, and he hugged his knees close to his chest, voice trembling. "They won't tell me anything. They won't even let me see him."

"Who's they?"

"The nurses. And a doctor, when I tried to sneak in. He snapped at me and John overheard."

Gordon huffed a laugh at that. "I bet that went down well."

"Yeah. Did you know how scary John is when he's angry?"

"Oh yes, I really do."

Alan stared out the window. He seemed to be looking at anything and everything just so long as it gave him an excuse to avoid Gordon's searching look. "Virgil and John are allowed in. I don't get why I'm not. Probably some bullshit about being under eighteen."

"I really doubt that."

"No, let me think that, because it's much better than the alternative."

Gordon tried to drag his mind away from that particular train of thought, because that was a spiral he did not want to fall down. "Hey," he suggested in a brighter voice, "if they don't tell me anything either, then you know what it'll call for?"

Alan shook his head. "What?"

"Hospital break!"

The beginnings of a smile dawned on Alan's face. He ducked his head to try and hide it but the hand that immediately struck his ribs aiming for that one ticklish spot had the laughter bubbling up. He flung himself out of reach and shot Gordon a reproachful look. "That's cheating."

"Made you smile though." Gordon had a self-satisfied grin that spoke of both smugness and concern. Alan wasn't about to call him out on it. "That's my job, come on Alan, you know this."

"Hospital break," Alan repeated, and started laughing. It was more hysterical than it was genuine, but Gordon would take it. It was better than the tears that had threatened to fall before. "You're insane."

"I know."

"Completely."

"Yep."

"I hate…no. No, I don't. Actually, thanks. I needed that."

Gordon blinked. "What just happened?"

Alan threw himself backwards and landed with a heavy thump on the end of the bed. His arms were draped over the end, fingers brushing the floor and once again there was that bandage. Gordon narrowed his eyes. Questions were going to be asked.

"We almost lost Scott. I don't know what's going on with him now, but I don't want my last words to any of you to be something dumb like I hate you."

"Al, I'm not about to spontaneously die."

"There could be an earthquake, a sinkhole could form, a spark could explode the oxygen tanks…"

"Wow. You've really thought about this."

"Tsunami, freak lightning strike… do you want me to go on?"

"No." Gordon shook his head vehemently. "No, you're good."

Alan was glaring at the ceiling panel directly above his head as though he had a personal vendetta against it. "I've really overthought this, haven't I?" He realised aloud with a sigh. Gordon made a noncommittal noise and Alan flipped over onto his front to face him. "I can't get it out my head, though."

"What – us getting hurt?"

"Is that dumb? I mean, look at IR."

Gordon closed his eyes. "Well young padawan," he whispered, a wicked grin spreading across his face that would have any other member of his family and friends fleeing for their lives. "It seems as though you need to get out of your head for a little while."

Alan sat up, narrowly avoiding whacking his head into the bars along the bed as he did so. "Hospital break?"

"Hospital break."

Gordon held out a fist and after a moment Alan bumped it with his own. "FAB?"

"FAB."

-

There are many aspects involved in a hospital break. The first of which is – obviously, one might say – having a suitable and fool-proof plan that no-one could possibly anticipate or foil. Gordon felt he could be forgiven for not having all the exact or precise details of their scheme given his thoughts felt a little bit like scraps of clouds being buffeted by the wind in all directions – he couldn't quite catch any of them before they drifted out of his grasp yet again and wow, okay, these painkillers he was on were some strong stuff…the good stuff.

Alan elbowed him in the ribs, careful to avoid the bruises. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"That dumb grin."

"Are you calling my face dumb?"

Alan raised a brow. "Uh, yeah. Absolutely."

"Rude."

"You're rude."

"You're wearing hospital clothes – that's rude."

"So are you! At least I'm not in a gown."

This was a fair point. Whereas Gordon was, quite literally, stuck wearing one of the inpatients' green, white and blue chequered gowns – the classic hospital attire had improved over the years to allow a soft version of cloth rather than the easily torn and frankly humiliating paper outfits of the past – Alan was allowed into the more relaxed top and trousers version that resembled pyjamas in the least comfortable and unhomely way possible. Still, Gordon was not allowing this insult to go unchallenged, so opened his mouth to retaliate. "Excuse me, I look fabulous in this. Besides, I don't have a choice."

"Neither do I! Anyway, it's part of the disguise. You know, to fool the staff and all that."

Gordon gave a dramatic sniff. "I smell bullshit."

"Yeah, it's your face."

"That doesn't even make sense."

Alan went to shove his hands in his pockets, recalled that hospital outfits didn't have pockets, and ended up glaring sulkily at the corridor ahead of them with a pout that a raging toddler would have been proud of. "Are we doing this or not?"

"I don't know, are you going to tell me if the corridor is clear or not?"

"You have eyes Gordon, use them."

"But you're the lookout."

"I'm going to be your murderer in a minute."

"Ooh, can you kill my ex for me?"

"Which one?"

"What do you mean which one you cheeky son-of-a-"

"Well there's been quite a few."

"I wish." There was a pause in which they darted across the corridor to hide behind a rather bulky cleaning cart which stood conspicuously abandoned. "Anyway, I meant Morgan."

"Oh. Then yeah, sure." Alan stole a glance over the top of the cart. "But you do know that wouldn't make me a murderer?"

"Technically it would, but sure, contracted killer, assassin, whichever label you want."

"Should I be worried that you know so many synonyms for this?"

"Yes."

"I'm not gonna question you."

"A smart move, brother-mine."

The corridor appeared to be empty, but Alan could hear footsteps in the distance. He pressed a hand to the wall, feeling for the tiny vibrations running through the plastic tiling that would confirm that there was indeed someone headed in their direction. After a couple of beats of silence and stillness that mirrored an evening spent on the lookout on Tracy Island, he concluded that their escapade was not at risk, so stepped out into the hallway once again. He wasn't entirely sure where they were even headed, but the sense of mischief and rebellion kept the darker thoughts at bay, so he was prepared to go along with whatever Gordon had planned.

Speaking of which…

"Gordon?" Alan turned to his side, found his brother missing, and returned to their previous hiding spot to discover the culprit staring dopily at the trays of multi-coloured desserts. "Uh, you okay there buddy?"

"I'm gonna steal the Jello cart."

Alan blinked. For some reason, all that came to mind was: "It's not a Jello cart."

"It's a cart containing Jello, ergo Jello cart."

"Your logic astounds me."

"It really should. This is ground-breaking stuff."

The fact that this wasn't the craziest of conversations or scenarios that he had experienced with his brother should probably have concerned Alan – and he did file it away at the back of his mind for contemplation at a later date – but what was more concerning was the high-pitched squeaking of the wheels of a second cart. In a flash of startled remarks from Gordon and rustling hospital-clothes, Alan stumbled through the nearest door and fumbled with the handle to try and close it.

"Try kicking it."

Alan nudged it with his foot. Nothing happened.

"Hey, check this out." Gordon flung himself at the door. "Gerominooo."

"Gordon, no."

There was a crash that echoed through the room that they were in and no doubt the corridor too. Alan winced, knowing instantly that their so-called hospital break was over before it had even really begun. Meanwhile Gordon didn't seem at all concerned, bouncing about the room with all the eagerness of an excited puppy – this was rather pitiful given the limp he was sporting that kept him listing to the side and grabbing hold of the nearest object – usually Alan – for balance.

Alan resigned himself to the fact that they were about to be caught, and smacked at the med-monitor strapped to his wrist until it flickered into life, illuminating the room that they were in. He frowned, glimpsing a single metal bed strapped to the far wall and yellow warning signs plastering the door they had just entered. "Where are we?"

"No clue." Gordon spun in a wide circle, eyes wide with excitement mixed with unfounded glee. He made a mad wave at the far wall and lost his balance in doing so. "Ooh, looksies, there's little pictures of bones everywhere."

Alan caught him before he could crash face-first into the floor. Realisation was slowly dawning and not in a good way. "Fuck…this is an x-ray room. Gordon. Gordon."

"Yeeee," was the only response, and it was mumbled into Alan's shoulder.

"Jesus, what are you on?"

Gordon titled his head back, pupils obviously dilated and hysterical laughter barely kept under wraps as he jabbed a finger into Alan's face. "I have no idea, but it's great. The air tastes like candyfloss."

Alan let out a loud groan. "This was a mistake."

"You're a mistake."

"God, I know." He stared up at the ceiling. "I must have done something really bad in a previous life."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"No, that was a…a…"

"A question?"

"Yes! A…" Gordon grinned. "A question as to why." He frowned. "Did that make sense?"

"No. But I got it, which is kind of even sadder." The footsteps were growing ever closer and Alan almost wished they would hurry up at this point. "I must have done something bad because I always end up getting dragged into these insane situations with you."

Gordon gave a contemplative hum. His left arm was slung over Alan's shoulders and his right was draped around the teenager's waist like an enthusiastic octopus. Silence fell, leaving them in a blissful darkness that hung heavily around them, eerily similar to their night on the beach with the explosions. Alan felt his pulse leap without having to check his med-monitor. He took a deep breath, found that it didn't ease the tightness in his chest one bit, and took another. As if reading his brother's mind, Gordon spoke up again.

"This place needs more glitter."

Alan let out a strangled laugh. "What?"

"Everything needs glitter. The world is not glittery enough. Why aren't you glittery? Alan, this is a tragedy."

"You're a tragedy."

"Well, duh."

The door finally opened. Bright light spilled into the room in a torrent that had them pressing their hands to the eyes. Gordon gave a pitiful whine and pressed his face to Alan's shoulder, slumping heavily against his side. Alan stumbled to the left to compensate and offered the nurse glaring at them a charming smile as a peace-offering. It did nothing to diminish the lecture that they were treated to as they were led back to their respective rooms. Alan was almost one hundred percent certain that Gordon wasn't even fully conscious, let alone taking in any of the angry words flung their way.

"There are rules," the flustered brunette was repeating, trying to smooth down her uniform and failing miserably. "What makes you think you're above the rules?"

"Uh…" Alan faltered. "Is that a rhetorical question or…?" The nurse shot him a furious look. "Right, okay, never-mind then."

"We're International Rescue." Gordon offered, apparently returning to the land of consciousness just in time to catch the end of the conversation.

"International dumbasses more like," the nurse grumbled under her breath.

Alan froze. "Did she really just say that?" He whispered.

"Oh yes," Gordon hissed back.

"Unbelievable." There was a snigger. "I like her."

-

Consciousness slammed into him at a similar rate to a sledgehammer crashing into a rock – ungraceful and decidedly unwelcome. Gordon pushed his face into the pillow and tried to will himself back into the warm dullness of sleep, but the flickers of light filtered through the fabric to poke at his eyes and the whirring of the monitors seemed too loud to ignore. He rolled onto his back with a groan and flopped an arm across his face like a disgruntled sloth.

"I am a pinata," he announced sorrowfully.

"Let me guess," a new voice said dryly. "Life is a baseball bat."

Gordon lifted his head up to glimpse Virgil leaning against the far wall. His brother looked decidedly worse for wear and more like he'd wandered in from a study hall just before finals in college than he did a fully grown and (supposedly) responsible adult. "Well," Gordon continued, "I was going to say awakeness was the baseball bat, but life works too."

"Life works better because awakeness isn't a word."

"That," Gordon hesitated, found himself with no comeback at the ready, and relented, "is a good point."

Virgil tried to hold on to his indifferent expression for a few moments longer, but the smile that was threatening to reveal itself to the world became too much to hold back. He unfolded himself from his position leant against the wall with his arms crossed and headed across to the bed. "It's good to see you awake."

"Good to be awake," Gordon replied, shuffling upright with the aid of the pillows. "Y'know, properly this time."

Virgil grinned. "Yeah, I heard about your little adventure. Alan said you were high on painkillers and rambled all sorts of great blackmail material."

"I literally can't remember anything other than ranting about Jello for about five minutes, so that's probably true." Gordon shivered. "Alan having blackmail on me. That's horrific. What is wrong with the world?"

"You woke up and the world knew that evil had returned."

"That's so dramatic and I love it." He stretched his arms out and beckoned Virgil closer. "C'mon. Bring it in. We all know you're a big softy really."

Virgil mumbled something that sounded like I am not, but it was ruined by the fact he was speaking into Gordon's shoulder, vaguely resembling a koala. Not that Gordon particularly minded. Man, Virgil was the best at hugs.

"You alright?"

Gordon hesitated. "Honestly?"

There was a pause. Virgil withdrew so that he could glimpse the expression on his brother's face, but his hand was still resting on Gordon's upper back. Hey, after the week they'd had, they could both do with a little grounding.

"Honestly."

"Probably not. I haven't had chance to think about everything yet." He shrugged. "Hey, when I feel like I'm about to crash I'll give you a shout."

Virgil didn't look particularly amused. Gordon prodded him until he tore his attention away from the floor because there was no way that plain white tiles could possibly be that interesting.

"How's Scott?"

Virgil gave a dark laugh. "I guess Alan let that one out of the bag, huh?"

"Please. I have spies all over the place." It was quiet for a moment. "Hey, c'mon. Level with me here. What's going on with Scooter?"

"They're still running tests."

Gordon found himself staring at the same floor tile. It was easier than eye contact – a lot less truth involved. "I was there," he whispered. It seemed as though the world was made of glass – as though they had reached a fragile balance between reality and denial and the slightest movement could shatter it all. Gordon had witnessed everything crash and burn around him in the past, both metaphorically and literally – he was in no hurry to repeat it. "I was there," he repeated. "I know it was bad, Virg. Real bad."

It was the slight slip – the soft lilt of an accent underneath that revealed how serious he was. Gordon being serious was so wrong and Virgil gave in. "Infections can cause complications."

"I know." There was a pointed look towards the bandaged leg protruding from the blankets.

It was probably done to get a laugh, but Virgil had reached the point where this was too much. In retrospect, he'd probably reached that point a few days ago, but he'd been running on fumes for the past few hours and the idea of forcing a laugh was exhausting. He scrubbed his hands over his face and sank down heavily onto the bed. "Do you?"

Gordon frowned. "Uh, yeah? Where are you going with this?" He tried to move closer, but the lack of coordination with his bandaged leg meant he more tipped over and landed against Virgil's side, grabbing at the rail to avoid tumbling off the bed completely.

"You're a disaster," Virgil muttered, steadying him.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't."

"Why won't they let Alan see him?"

There was an awkward silence. After twenty years, Gordon knew how to read his brother like an open book. "What are you hiding?" Virgil shuffled and stared out the window. His foot was tapping against the floor nervously. Gordon narrowed his eyes. "Holy shit," he realised in a rush, "you asked them to keep him out."

Virgil didn't confirm it, but he certainly didn't deny it. "You guys went through a traumatic experience," he protested. "I didn't want to make it worse for Alan by seeing Scott in a hospital bed."

"And keeping him in the dark was a better option?"

"I didn't say that!"

"But you did it!"

"It was just until you woke up." There was a suspicious tightness to his voice; a sense of closely held control as though he were about to start crying. Gordon may not agree with him, but he could see where Virgil was coming from.

"Alright." He shook his head. "I get it. But you've got to tell us what's actually going on, because Alan won't like being lied to and the longer you carry this on the worse it's gonna be when he finds out."

"We're not lying."

"You're not being honest either."

"That's a bit rich, coming from you."

Gordon clapped a hand to his chest and collapsed back against the mattress dramatically. "Why, you wound me, brother. I'm very honest… when I'm not plotting."

There was a quiet chuckle. Gordon sat back up and knocked their shoulders together. "Hey," he said softly, trying to sound as genuine as he possibly could. "I'm serious. I do get it. But now I'm awake both me and Alan are going to see Scott, and you're going to tell us exactly what's wrong with him and what we should expect."

Virgil was silent for a moment. "It's Alan and I actually."

"What?"

"Alan and I. Me and Alan isn't grammatically correct."

Gordon shoved him off the bed and dumped a pillow on his head for good measure. For the first time in days genuine laughter echoed about the hospital room. Warm light flooded through the blinds – the sun was rising on a new day.


	8. Chapter Eight

Sunsets had always marked a sense of peace – the idea that you had made it through the day, no matter how hard the trials may have been – with the sky plastered in so many exotic colours and stars that it seemed as though the world was celebrating in its own way. Sometimes there was little to celebrate other than that the earth was still turning and the sun would still come back up at the end of the night – a metaphor in its own right – but other times it marked the moment when you could sit and think over just how amazing the events of that particular day had been.

This particular sunset was one of the former times.

Gordon was well aware that he was supposed to be in bed. The nurses were surprisingly sympathetic, however, and had allowed him to clamber onto a chair close to the window. The window itself was open, a gentle breeze floating in and tossing the blinds to-and-fro. There was the taste of rain in the air, and the scents of spices and fresh food from the markets in the town just a few streets away. He rested his chin on the windowsill and watched as more colours dripped into the clouds. It had been a very long few days. It seemed almost surreal to be back in civilisation.

"Hey." There was a quiet knock against the doorframe. Gordon caught sight of Alan's reflection in the glass. He was leant against the door, one foot wavering hesitantly as he considered taking another step. His voice seemed almost nervous. "Are you normal again?"

"Never."

"Obviously." Alan swung himself from the doorframe by one hand. "Fine, are you no longer high on painkillers?"

"No. I'm not on anything right now."

"Okay." Alan let go of the doorframe. "Can I come in?"

"Sure."

Alan padded across the room to join him. He was wearing a pair of ridiculously fluffy slippers – blue, and a vague lion shape complete with a pair of sparkling purple googly eyes – and had apparently been allowed back into his home clothes for he was in a pair of soft charcoal sweatpants and an over-sized hoodie with Harvard strewn across the back in block capitals, declaring it was John's. Gordon raised a brow.

"I asked John to pick me up some things." Alan spun on the spot, a mischievous grin on his face. "Why? Do I look too fabulous for your company?"

"Definitely," Gordon drawled.

Alan sighed. One of the hoodie strings was tucked into of the corner of his mouth and he chewed on it anxiously. A moment later he gave in and leapt up to sit on Gordon's bed, feet swinging to knock against the safety rail below.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Gordon didn't take his eyes off the sunset. "Want to try that again?"

"It's weird. Being back, I mean. And we were only gone for a week, so…it shouldn't be. Right? But I…you were unconscious for ages and Scott still is, and Virgil and John are treating me like I'm made of glass and I'm about to break any second. Which I'm not."

"I get it."

"Yeah. I know." Alan collapsed against the mattress and groaned. "It feels different though."

Gordon was still pretty out of it. His head was cloudy with the aftermath of too-strong painkillers and despite having slept for hours on end he was still tired. He closed his eyes and just listened. There were the distant cries of seagulls, and tropical music from the market. Alan's breathing had evened out and when Gordon glanced across at him it seemed that he had fallen asleep.

There was something different – Alan was right about that. All Gordon could do was hope that when they finally made it home to Tracy Island everything would slot neatly back into place and they would feel normal again. Yet, underneath it all – the medication, the whispers of concern and the sounds of footsteps as familiar visitors left and entered rooms during the haze of sleep – there was that overwhelming feeling that they were still lost.

He returned his attention to the sunset. It may not have all the answers that he was looking for, but it sure was pretty.

-

Hospitals brought up too many bad memories – recollections of past visits and all that those entailed – his brothers' times spent in these beds or even his own which brought with them further reminders of the reasons for those visits – rescues gone wrong, fiery plummets back into the atmosphere – and John couldn't stay for too long before feeling claustrophobic. Given this, it wasn't too much of a surprise when he found himself walking out of the sliding doors and into a wave of heat.

They were too close to the equator for it to be cool enough for a sweatshirt, but far enough south that the temperature had dipped somewhat from the heat of the day to much more manageable levels. John wandered through the streets, unsure about where his feet were taking him but happy enough to end up wherever that was. This was one of the smaller cities along the coast, and remnants of the past were still visible in the tall, apartment-block lined streets – the cold brickwork and clustered balconies that dated back to the pre-millennium. Now, where grime and the dust of day-to-day pollution would have once collected in the gutters and side-avenues, flowerboxes trailed the pavements, splashes of bright colour here and there to brighten the monotonous grey and brown of tightly packed buildings. Up above, beneath a curtain of darkening peach, washing lines strung with clothes and flags and dancing fairy lights hung between the balconies, wavering in the soft breeze.

The market was still relatively busy. Some merchants were shutting down their stalls for the night – bright lights of sci-fi blue and white holograms offering sales, discounts, and easy payments, disintegrating into the evening light as projectors were switched off and tucked into bags, ready to be set up again for tomorrow. John picked his way through the bustling streets, offering smiles to any traders that looked his way. He was well aware that he stuck out like a sore thumb with his jeans and clean shirt tucked into his belt against the local wear of loose cloth and sandals. A large woman in a floral gown pulled him aside, one hand wrapped around his forearm. Her words were quick and encouraging, and John reached up to tap at the global translator connected to his earpiece.

"Are you local, or visiting?"

John retrieved his arm from her gentle touch – physical contact was…okay, but only with the people he knew and trusted – and slotted his hands into his pockets. "Visiting," he replied in the local language. His pronunciation was slightly off – he was cringing internally and silver laughter in his earpiece meant that EOS was finding his struggles amusing – but the woman's face lit up. "Sorry about the pronunciation." He shrugged. "I try."

"Nonsense!" She lay a hand on his shoulder. "It's lovely to hear someone speak our language. Why are you visiting?"

John cast a glance up the hill. The streets and houses wound about the landscape in a sea of rich colours, broken by the muted greys of roads, but at the top the hospital cast a deep shadow against the setting sun. "I have family here."

She followed his gaze. "Ah. The hospital?"

"My brothers. There was…an accident."

"Ah no." She shook her head, a slight tsk of sympathy. "I am sorry. Come." She led him into the expanse of floating waves – curtains of patterned cloth and light silk – until her stall came into view. John drank in the scents of spices and warm pastry - soft with sugar and creamy butter with local fruits spooned into the centre - and relaxed. "Hungry?"

He gave her a smile. "Yes, but I'm afraid I don't carry cash." He waved a hand in the direction of the streets. "Everything's automatic transfer whenever I'm planet-side and there's not much need for change in space."

"You work up there?"

"You could say that."

"My daughter dreams to work on Global One." She gave a fond grin. "She's a bright gal – a bit daft sometimes – but kind too."

"I'm sure she'll make it."

"I hope so." She motioned to the tray of goodies. "Take one." She shut down his protests with a single look – the kind of burning, unquestionable yet kind gaze that only a mother can know. "It's on the house."

John had EOS scan the stall and the merchant whilst he thanked the lady and accepted the offering. Warmth melted through the paper wrapping into his hands and he caught a snatch of cinnamon as he made his way down to the harbour.

"Did you find her?"

EOS hummed contemplatively. "Yes. The stall is a family business – has been for decades."

"Transfer a donation across." He avoided a group of laughing teenagers and snuck past a barrier that warned of falling rocks to make his way down to the beach. "And make a note to recommend her daughter for the twenty-seventy Global One crew."

"Yes John." EOS hesitated. "How are Gordon and Scott?"

She knew all too well how the other Tracy brothers were, and John was aware of this – there was essentially nothing technologically beyond EOS and she had been in the hospital systems ever since John had crossed the threshold. Still, there was something reassuring about being able to talk about it all to a friend and John felt a surge of affection for her. EOS was an unknown quantity, but she was good, and she was learning.

"Gordon's awake now – properly this time. Scott's…he came to a little while ago. He's still pretty out of it. Medically he's a wreck at the moment, but Brains is heading out in a few hours and the doctors are confident that the treatments are working. He should make a full recovery."

"But?"

John couldn't help but smile at that. "You know me so well."

"Must have something to do with spending all my time with you."

"That's not true – you spend a lot of your time deciding how best to play jokes on me." He caught sight of a large boulder – flat-topped and dry, waves splashing about the base where the sand sloped down – and made a beeline for it. "I don't know where you get it from. Anyone would think Gordon had programmed you, not me."

"Well," EOS's voice was light with laughter, "he is your brother."

"True."

John pried his shoes off and wrapped the laces around his wrist, damp sand and gentle waves splashing about his ankles. He rolled up his jeans and heaved himself up to sit on the rock – zero-gee was fun but did hell to his muscle-mass and he knew all too well that he was well overdue some pretty heavy time in the gym to try to build it back up. The sun was warm on his skin, the soft thrum of insect-song filling the air alongside the lull of the waves, and John took a moment to take it all in. Days of worrying and constant work to try to track down his missing brothers, and then the new-founded concerns and stress of the hospital stay was exhausting, and he'd needed the break.

"So?"

He unwrapped the pastry and settled the paper-covering in his lap. "So, Scott's going to need some pretty lengthy PT once he's back on his feet."

"He won't be flying One for a while."

"Exactly." He sighed. "That's not gonna sit well with him, especially given Alan's going to be back on duty within a couple of weeks. Scott's not going to like Al flying One while he's stuck on the sofa."

"He won't be the only one grounded," EOS reminded him. "Gordon's in no shape to be swimming about the depths of the ocean."

In place of a reply, all EOS received was a lengthy groan of frustration. She flitted across to a nearby satellite that was orbiting over his location and zoomed in on the cameras until she could glimpse John flopped back across the rock, limbs dangling over the edge to dangle his feet in the water. She giggled.

"You look comfortable."

John squinted up at the sky. A single flash of silver – moving slowly to the left as if to prove that it was a satellite and not a star – was visible amongst the salmon-pinks of faint clouds. "We've talked about this, EOS – no hacking satellites."

"It's not hacking, I don't have complete control." She returned to Thunderbird Five and flicked through the radio frequencies for any distress calls. "It's more…hitching a lift. Piggy-backing. I have many other comparisons if you wish to hear them."

"I think I can live without."

"Spoilsport."

"Thank you."

She sighed good-naturedly. "Eat your pastry. Also, you have a message from Virgil, but seeing as you turned your watch off transmissions mode ten minutes ago, I'm assuming that you don't want to hear it."

"Is it urgent?"

She considered this. "Not particularly."

"Then give me five minutes. I'll head back up soon, I just…" John stared at the horizon. The sunset was leaking into the ocean – liquid amber swirling into pools of deep blue as the royal purple of oncoming night chased the warmth from the horizon – and stars were beginning to sow themselves into the canopy above. "I just need a moment."

"I understand."

"Really?"

"Yes. I know your history, John. Your family does not have a good track-record with hospitals."

"That's putting it lightly." John filtered the water through his fingers, ripples of sand catching about his wrist. "Hey EOS?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

She wasn't sure what the gratitude was for, but suspected it was simply something he needed to say. Humans were complicated – codes were far easier. All the same – "You're welcome, John." She switched Five into night-mode, simply so she could float amongst the pale blue glow rather than the bright lights of operating hours. "I'll be here if you need me."

-

Coffee in hospitals was guaranteed to taste terrible. This was a sad fact that was globally accurate no matter where you travelled, and it also happened to be something that Virgil could confirm from first-hand experience. Still, tiredness was creeping about his mind and leeching awareness from him in a blanket of grogginess, so he headed down to the café all the same. He could, technically, have asked one of the nurses for a cup whilst he waited in Scott's room, but there was small, selfish part of him that was desperate to escape for a little while. He'd spent too much time over the years sitting beside hospital beds – hell, even being the one in the bed – and all he wanted was to go home. As soon as Brains was done with whatever he'd been concocting on the island – the scientist had been tight-lipped about the whole thing and all Virgil knew was that it was meant to help combat the infection and essentially kickstart Scott's immune-system to get the eldest Tracy brother back on his feet again – they could leave, but from the look of that hospital chart, that was unlikely to be for another couple of days.

He wrapped his hands around the paper cup and stared into the dark liquid. The steam was hot, warming the tip of his nose until he had to sneeze, but any heat was welcome – while it was warm outside, the hospital appeared to try to overcompensate for this fact, and the aircon was insane. He wriggled his fingers until he regained the sensation in his hands and took another sip of the coffee.

It was quiet in the café. Visiting hours were almost over – officially, anyway – but being International Rescue had its perks, so Virgil was confident that he'd be allowed back up to Scott's room whenever he decided to make his way back. The young man serving looked tired in the way that boredom always does instil drowsiness, and there was a small family clustered around a table in the far corner, balloons and cuddly toys plastered over the table, a card being passed around with a pen. Virgil tried to keep his attention away from their conversation, and it wasn't hard given the way he felt like melting into the tabletop. He shook himself and tried to sit up, taking another long sip from the cup and grimacing at the aftertaste.

A hand landed on his shoulder, all familiar and friendly. "Alright sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. With a face like that, you're scaring the patients."

"Oh ha, ha." Virgil slumped further into his seat. "Hi Gordon."

"Hey." Gordon pulled out a chair and collapsed into it. He crossed his arms on the table and settled his chin on the top, fixing his gaze on Virgil and staring intently. "I was trying to find John, but he's gone and Alan's asleep still."

"Good to know that I was your last resort."

"Oh, don't say that darlin', you know I always love your company."

Virgil dropped his head into his hands and audibly groaned. "Of course your sarcasm survives. You wrecked your leg so badly that you had to undergo surgery to stimulate the muscle-cell regrowth, but somehow your ability to annoy me remains intact."

Gordon was quiet for a moment. "You love it," he replied, not even trying to hide his grin.

"Debatable."

"You totally do." Gordon slid a hand across the table to make a grab at Virgil's coffee. Virgil moved it out of reach and his brother pouted. "Aw, c'mon."

"Are you even allowed caffeine?"

"To quote you – debatable."

"I've seen your meds list – you're definitely not allowed caffeine."

Gordon widened his eyes.

"Don't give me that wounded puppy look, it doesn't work on me."

"But…but Virgil…my favourite brother…my co-pilot…partner in crime…"

"First off, no. Secondly, your partner in crime is Alan."

Gordon sighed and moved his hand back. "Fair point."

Virgil returned to his coffee. There was a patchwork of stains across the tabletop and he ran a finger around the circles.

"Hey." Gordon was watching him, genuine concern playing across his face. Virgil avoided his gaze – Gordon always had been the open book of the family – where John could easily school his features into a mask of indifference, Gordon took after Scott by leaving his emotions clear to see. It made it a lot harder to ignore him when he was being so obviously serious, which, in itself, was unusual. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Longer than three hours?"

Gordon glared at him.

"I don't know. Thursday?"

"That's not healthy."

"Out of the two of us, which one is currently in hospital with enough bandages wrapped around his leg to challenge an Egyptian mummy?"

Gordon snapped his mouth shut. He looked almost proud, a glint of amusement in his eyes that had been missing for days. He aimed a light kick at Virgil's ankle under the table.

"Stop it."

"Stop what? I'm not doing anything."

"Gordon."

"Virgil."

Virgil shifted his chair further away and drained the final dregs of coffee from his cup. Gordon watched as he tossed the empty container into a nearby bin, a mournful look directed after it. The family across the room rose in a clatter of chair-legs, children's voices and the squeaks of balloons colliding in a tangled mess, helium escaping in a lengthy hiss. The group bustled past them and Gordon gazed at the balloon, a hint of mischief noticeable on his face. Virgil knocked him out of his thoughts before a prank could come to fruition.

"Where'd you get the clothes?"

Gordon glanced down at himself. He was finally free of the hospital-issued gown and slippers, and instead was dressed in a pair of sweats and a loose t-shirt with a cartoon orca on it, a cheerful caption announcing save the whales. As usual, as though he were at home and not in a public hospital, he was barefoot, and Virgil tugged off his shoes and then his socks in exasperation, tossing them at his brother's face.

"Ew." Gordon let the socks fall into his lap and pulled a face. "I don't want your smelly socks."

"They're not…" Virgil pinched the brim of nose and tried not to snap. "Look, you can't wander around a hospital barefoot, especially not in the areas open to the public. There could be anything laying around. I'd give you my shoes, but you'd fall over they'd be so big on you, so socks it is."

"Yeah, that's a hard pass."

"Gordon. Put on the goddam socks."

Gordon went to protest further but caught sight of Virgil's expression. He knew when to push and when to simply give in, and this was one of those times that called for the latter. He slid on the socks, but not without a grimace.

"So." Virgil rubbed the bleariness from his vision. "Clothes. Where?"

"John, I guess." Gordon shrugged, pushed back his chair, and placed his feet on the table. Virgil couldn't be bothered to tell him off and merely rested his hands on his brother's ankles. The guy on the counter shot an annoyed glare but didn't say anything. Gordon twisted in his seat and offered him a wave by way of an apology – sometimes it was great having Virgil has a brother simply because no one ever wanted to cross the guy – appearances weren't everything, but Gordon was more than happy to let people believe Virgil was some terrifying superhuman if it meant they weren't about to be kicked out the café or complained at. Hey, he knew that his brother was secretly a complete softie who cried at sad movies or when animals got eaten on nature documentaries, so other people's opinions didn't really matter. "He brought clothes for Alan, and when I woke up these were on the end of the bed."

"Huh." Virgil tried to tear his gaze away from the stains. He was zoning out again. He tried to focus his attention on anything else – the clock, Gordon's bandages, the bright colours of chocolate wrappers on the counter to his left. "I don't know where he's gone."

"The beach." Gordon shifted in his chair under the searching stare he was subjected to. "There's a better view of the stars down there, and he's seemed kind of stressed out. I don't know what happened whilst we were gone, but Johnny's…well, he's looked better, put it that way."

"Yeah." Virgil huffed a laugh. "Yeah, I think we both have."

Gordon lifted his feet off the table, wincing as the movement tugged at his injury. "I'm gonna take a guess and say that he came down from Five and worked non-stop, whilst you were torn between searching the rescue zone twenty-four seven and the logical part of your mind that told you that the currents were far too strong in that area for us to possibly be anywhere near. So you both struggled with guilt and being complete dumbasses until you found us and neither of you have taken the chance to sit back and actually…"

"Break?"

"Jeez bro, a little dark much? I was going to say that you hadn't taken it all in. I think it all just hit John, especially being in a hospital again." Gordon gave an exaggerated shiver. "Man, these places give me the creeps."

You're not the only one, Virgil thought, but didn't voice this aloud. Hospitals were all too clinical and cold – harsh whites and emotionless machines – he had medical training himself and knew that emotions couldn't come into account when working, but damnit, it all just added to the feeling that this was a place of death rather than recovery. He wrapped his arms around himself, ignored Gordon's raised brow, and changed the subject. "So…the beach, huh?"

"Yep."

"I texted him asking what time he'd be back."

"Yeah, he'll have turned his comm off." Gordon shrugged. "I don't know Virg, he just needs to look at the stars and work through everything for a bit. It's John, he's always overthought stuff. He'll be back soon."

Virgil watched him in silence. He wasn't doubting what his brother was saying – hell, Gordon was more perceptive than anyone gave him credit for and it was one of the reasons why they made such a good team in the first place – Virgil knew when to leave well alone and Gordon knew when to push and between it stood a fine balance of understanding without a need for words. Apparently this same friendship and perception also came into play where John was involved – although Virgil was hardly surprised – it seemed strange that the loudest person in the family should get along so well with the quietest, but Gordon and John had always had that easy camaraderie that Virgil had almost envied during their childhood. It made sense that Gordon would just get where John was, and the reasons why.

"What?"

Virgil startled out of his thoughts. "Huh?"

"You were staring at me." Gordon tapped a finger on Virgil's nose. "It was creepy."

"You're creepy."

"Nah." Gordon leant back in his chair, waved his arms, and promptly began to overbalance. Virgil's hand shot out on reflex to steady him. "I'm fabulous."

Virgil shook his head and dropped his chin to the tabletop with a muffled whimper. Gordon poked at his shoulder cautiously.

"Virg? You good?"

Virgil made a grumble of annoyance and buried his face in his arms.

"Hey." Gordon's voice took on a more genuine tone. "I'm serious dude. Are you okay? Because yeah, me and Alan and Scott had it bad, but that was a hell of a lot of pressure on you too. Don't try telling me that you didn't do the whole blaming yourself thing, because I know you did."

Virgil glanced up at him. Gordon was staring at the ceiling, pointedly avoiding his gaze.

"You flew away from the rescue site, which made perfect sense and if everything hadn't gone to hell in a fruit basket within the next ten minutes, would actually have worked pretty well. It was a freak accident, and we all made it out okay in the end."

"But did you?"

"Uh." Gordon peered down at the bandages on his leg and then back up again. "Mostly?"

Virgil snorted. He was incredibly sleep-deprived and reaching the point where nothing seemed real anymore, but Gordon was familiar and the epitome of home even in a place that appeared the exact opposite. "For some really weird, strange, odd…"

"Keep it going…"

"Irrational, completely bizarre…"

"This is great Virgil – did you read a dictionary whilst I was gone?"

"Insane reason…" He stopped and took a breath.

Gordon was smiling as if he knew what was coming next. "Yeah?"

"I actually missed you."

Gordon brightened. "Oh yeah?" He had that soft look of pure concern and affection on his face that was usually hidden behind a mask of indifference and humour. Which, alright, Virgil understood – Gordon was a total empath and in their line of work there were always those few that they just couldn't save – if Virgil talked it through with Scott late at night with a beer or two, then that was cool, but Gordon just couldn't afford to think about it – so this was his brother being his absolute honest self.

"Yeah." There was a brightness to Gordon's eyes that hadn't been there previously. Virgil pushed back his chair, banished the haze of exhaustion as best he could, and stumbled across to his brother's side of the table. "Yeah little brother, I did miss you."

There was a lot they hadn't talked about yet and many conversations that they needed to have. Virgil knew all too well what Alan refusing to sleep in an empty room without any of his family around meant, and Gordon was yet to rest without the help of medication. But that was a bridge they'd cross when they came to it and, for now, he was happy to just be.

"Hey Virg?"

"Hmm?"

Gordon mumbled something into Virgil's shoulder, then spoke again, a little louder. "Are you not gonna lecture me about being out of my room?"

"Yeah, I figured you weren't supposed to be down here."

"And?"

Virgil allowed himself to grin – Gordon was too wrapped up in the hug to notice. "And I know the reason you're really here, even if you claim it's just to break the rules and annoy the nurses."

"Which, of course, totally is the reason." Gordon gave a nervous laugh. "Y'know. Wasn't worried about you at all or anything."

"Uh huh. Sure."

The sliding doors at the entrance hissed, and Gordon twisted out of the hug to glimpse the newcomer. Virgil kept an arm over his brother's shoulders but lifted a hand to wave as the tall blond figure that stepped into view noticed them.

"Hey Johnny!"

John frowned. "Shouldn't he be upstairs?"

"Uh, he is right here," Gordon protested and was promptly ignored.

"I got an alert from the ward," John continued, tapping at his watch.

"Oh, so that thing is working," Virgil muttered, unable to keep the petulance out of his voice. John stared at him deadpan and he ducked his head, flushing.

"Told you," Gordon sing-songed, and Virgil ran a hand across his ribs. Gordon yelped and struggled to hide his ticklish spot. John had no patience for the moment and broke it with a single comment.

"Scott's awake."

Silence fell.

"We should probably wake Alan up," Virgil murmured.

-

Alan had somehow migrated from the edge of the mattress to sprawling across the entire bed. All four limbs were outstretched, legs tangled in the blankets and one hand curled around the safety railings. He was lying face-down, burying his head in the pillows, only a mess of tangled blond hair visible and one slipper discarded on the floor, the other dangling precariously from his toes. It was the most relaxed Gordon had seen him in days and he felt the overwhelming urge to just let him continue sleeping – it wasn't as if Alan couldn't do with the extra rest – but Scott was his brother too and it was only fair.

Virgil slipped past, leaving Gordon and John in the doorway. John was focussed on his watch, holograms darting about his fingertips with only one remaining ever-steady and faithful – EOS. Gordon reached out and jabbed at it. John slapped his hand away.

"Don't."

"What are you even looking at?"

"Nothing that concerns you." There was a slight raise to his voice – a tiny tremor that was practically indistinguishable from his usual tones – a needle amongst a thousand haystacks – but Gordon picked up on it.

"Hey." He knocked his shoulder against his brother's. "It's something."

John heaved a sigh. "Please," he finally looked up, "just leave it Gordon. I'm trying to deal with it."

"Sure, sure. Just…don't deal with everything yourself."

"I'm sorry, are you trying to lecture me right now?" John shot him an incredulous look. Gordon would have been worried had he not been so caught up in curiosity. Whatever was on the watch, John definitely didn't want him knowing about it, which was reaffirmed by the way the elder turned the projection off.

Gordon stared at him.

John shifted uneasily. "What?"

"Have you grown? Like have you actually gotten taller since I've been gone? Because that is a) totally unfair and b) is that even humanly physically possible?"

"No. Also: gravity."

"Huh." Gordon nodded thoughtfully. "Good answer."

Virgil roused Alan from his slumber with a gentle hand on the back that turned into some vigorous shaking – Alan always had been a deep sleeper – a necessity given he'd had to share a room with Gordon for ten years. Finally, after retrieving his slippers and stumbling out of bed like a deranged zombie, Alan seemed alert enough to process what was going on. Virgil and John led the way down the hall and then waited around for the lift, occasionally smacking at the call button in a feeble attempt to speed it up. Gordon hung back and fell into step alongside Alan, shooting his brother a concerned look.

"'Sup?"

Alan yawned, stretched and then looked blankly at him. "Nothing." He hesitated. "Actually, the ceiling. The ceiling is up."

"That is the oldest joke in the book and I'm disappointed in you right now."

"Join the club."

Gordon frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know." Alan shrugged and dove his hands into his pockets. His face was stormy and the relaxed posture he had held during sleep was now replaced with tension. "I'm just being stupid."

"Doesn't sound like it."

"Jeez, it was a joke, just let it go. Who are you – Scott?"

Gordon winced. "Sorry?"

"No, fuck, I'm sorry." Alan dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned. "I didn't mean that. I'm just worried about Scotty and stuff. Also, this really kinda hurts." He lifted his hoodie a little to reveal the bandages.

"Yeah, about that. What happened?"

"You don't remember?"

Alan seemed oddly serious, so Gordon scanned back in his memories to try and think of something. He came up empty-handed. "No." He glimpsed Alan's doubtful look. "I'm being serious."

"Well that's new."

"Allie, c'mon. Work with me here. I don't remember much after setting the whole damn trail on fire."

"Havoc doesn't pull her punches. Turns out I was running on adrenaline which is why I didn't feel this when it happened." Alan laughed without much humour. "I'm telling you, Virgil freaked when he saw I was bleeding. Right through my uniform and shit. I looked like I'd stepped out of a really bad horror movie."

"Yeah, that or a crime-time drama. Jeez Al, how did you not feel that happen?"

"I don't know." Alan slowed to almost a halt as they approached the elevator. "Seriously Gords, I don't know. She hit me a bunch and one of them caught harder than the others and left a cut there. It's not even that deep. Probably caused by one of the edges of those metal glove things she was wearing."

"Lot of bandages for a surface wound."

"You're wearing a leg-brace and you don't even have a break."

Gordon held up his hands. "You've got me there." He knocked their shoulders together. "You want to talk?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

The elevator doors parted with a ding and they all piled in, Virgil awkwardly folding himself into a corner to make room. Alan pressed himself against the doors and screwed his eyes tightly shut, hands clenched into fists. John rested a hand on his shoulder – Alan didn't like lifts and never had done – it wasn't exactly a family secret.

"Aw c'mon," Gordon whined as soon as he walked through the door. "Scott's room is way better than mine!"

There was a weak chuckle from the bed. "Good to see you too Fish."

"I mean really," Gordon gestured to the room around him. "I think they took one look at you and were like oh, look at this poor guy, and felt so bad for you looking like you that they just gave you the better room."

"Gordon," Virgil muttered. "Shut up."

"Sorry." Gordon knitted his fingers together, then shoved his hands in his pockets. He soon got bored of this and began tapping his heels. Nervousness took many forms, but usually in jokes, hence his immediate rambling, and from the comforting hand Virgil laid on his shoulder, his brother knew that. "They said they took me off the meds, but I don't trust them. Can't trust a doctor, everyone knows that."

"Brains," Virgil pointed out. "Me."

"Okay, well first off, Brains is technically a scientist, not a surgeon, and secondly, you're not a fully qualified doctor, you're just…"

"Just International Rescue's Field Medic with hours of emergency experience?"

Gordon hesitated. "That...that would be correct."

He finally fell silent and took another good look at Scott. His brother looked better than he had on the island – still deathly pale, but at least clean of blood and grime, and despite the sickly pallor to his skin, he definitely seemed more alert. Still, he looked ill and it was unnerving. They were back, they were safe, Scott was supposed to be fine.

"Wow," Gordon found himself saying. "You look like shit."

While Virgil looked horrified, Scott, who'd always had a darker sense of humour than he'd ever officially admit to, started laughing, and immediately winced. "Don't hold back little brother by all means."

Alan finally broke ranks and barged past them, ducking under John's arm and scrambling onto the bed, toppling over the sides of the railings and slithering down to sit by Scott's feet. "Hi," he announced somewhat breathlessly, hair askew and freckles stark in the bright lights of the hospital room.

"Hi." Scott's voice was definitely quieter than usual but the warmth in his gaze as he smiled at his youngest brother was still there. He reached across to tap at one of Alan's lion slippers. "I didn't know you still had these."

"Neither did I," Alan admitted, wriggling his toes in the aforementioned footwear and grinning as the light caught on the glittery eyes of the lions. "But John found them."

Virgil tried to keep his voice down, but Gordon still overheard him. "You went home?"

John sounded almost defensive. "Yeah. Why, is that a problem?" He crossed his arms across his chest and straightened up.

"No. I just wondered when."

"Last night."

"I thought you'd gone for a walk."

"It was a quick flight." John bit his lip and then continued with his admission. "I took One."

Gordon quickly concluded that this was not a conversation he wanted to be a part of. Whatever trouble John was caught up in that had him taking midnight flights back to Tracy Island and turning off his hologram projector whenever someone tried to sneak a look at it, well, Gordon wasn't sure that he was ready to get dragged into another mess so soon after the last one. Give him a few days to recover and get his mind back in the right headspace, and then sure.

Scott's room was, undeniably, better. Whereas Gordon's held only a bed, a chair, and a single window, Scott's contained several plush seats as well as a second door that probably led to an en-suite. There was, admittedly, only one window, but it was long and much taller, stretching the full length of the far wall. It was gently pushed to in order to let in some fresh air and Gordon wandered over to it, peering down at the gardens below. It was getting too dark to see anything much, but many of the flowerbeds were lit by tiny lights and the fountain in the centre was illuminated in various shades of purple and blue.

He snuck a glance across at his brothers. Scott was talking with Alan – although it was Alan doing most of the speaking, with Scott merely sitting and listening to every single word, chuckling or offering a smile whenever appropriate. They were engrossed in their conversation and Gordon took the opportunity to steal the med-chart from the end of the bed. Leant against the window, sore leg stretched out to try and ease the ache that the painkillers had left in their absence, he swiped through the electronic pages, frowning at the sprawled notes. Many of them made no sense to him, but he'd been part of International Rescue long enough to receive quite a bit of medical training, so odd phrases here and there were familiar – too familiar.

A hand clasped the edge of the chart, successfully blocking his view. Gordon tracked it back to the owner and glared at Virgil. "I was reading that."

"Evidently." Virgil faltered. "I…do…I mean, do you understand it?"

"Not all of it," Gordon admitted, "but enough. That's bad, Virg. He was that close to sepsis."

"Trust me, I know."

"What's the new stuff?" Gordon pointed at the latest additions at the base of the page.

Virgil grimaced. "Uh…" He glanced over his shoulder. "Hey Scott, you mind if Gordon and I go grab a drink? We'll be back in a few."

Across the room, John looked up and frowned, knowing with complete certainty that they'd been in a café less than half an hour before. He didn't say anything.

"Sure." Scott waved a hand. "S'cool."

"Hey Virg?" Alan bounced up and down on the bed eagerly. Scott placed a hand on his knee and Alan stopped, shooting him an apologetic look. "Can you grab me a hot chocolate?"

"FAB." Virgil grabbed Gordon's arm and tugged him out of the room, closing the door behind them. There was a row of a few plastic chairs, startling blue and hard-backed, but Virgil made a beeline for them anyway, settling down with a heavy sigh.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" Gordon folded his arms and stared down at his brother. "Virgil."

"Yeah, yeah." Virgil tangled his hands in his hair and made a pitiful sound of both pure exhaustion and days of prolonged worry. "I just need a minute."

Gordon sat down next to him. "Okay."

"Is that cool?"

"Yeah. It's fine, bro." There was a strangled noise that sounded too much like a sob for Gordon's liking. "Hey, hey." He gingerly lay a hand on Virgil's back. "Virg. Come on. Whatever's going on, we'll fix it."

"I know." Virgil's voice was barely a whisper. He was trembling, fingers tightening in his hair and tugging painfully. Gordon grabbed his hands and gently guided them away.

"Stop that. You're gonna hurt yourself."

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit. Look at me and say that again."

Virgil looked up, opened his mouth to speak and then just stopped. His eyes were bright, expression raw with unspoken emotions of worry and pure fear that had built up and up without being addressed. That was Virgil's thing – he'd feel everything so much but try to be the strong one as though mirroring their physical builds. It was a load of rubbish and Gordon was sick and tired of his brother putting everyone else first all the time.

"Fuck."

Virgil gave a wet laugh. "Language."

"Snickerdoodle. Quiznak. For whale's sake."

"Oh my god Gordon, stop."

Gordon laughed. "Made you smile though."

"Yeah." Virgil sniffed and rubbed the stray tears from his face with his sleeve. "I guess you did."

"That was a long time coming."

"Probably."

"We're home. All of us." Gordon looked at him earnestly. "You got us back."

"Doesn't feel like it."

Gordon kicked out his legs and leant back in the chair. The wall was cold against the back of his neck and he tilted to the side until he was mostly leaning on Virgil. If the contact was grounding and helped his brother calm down too, then…well, that was just a bonus that Gordon had definitely, one hundred percent, not planned at all. Totally.

"They took him in for surgery three times."

Gordon recognised a story when he heard one and fell silent. When Virgil began talking it was better to let him finish, get it all out, before you interrupted, no matter how shocking or horrific the contents may be. This was a tale that he needed to hear, and in return he had a couple of admissions of his own.

"Severe infection that had spread. Bacterial presence in the bloodstream. You know the drill Gordon, you've been there yourself." Virgil took a deep breath. "Brains…well, he's been working on some kind of treatment, because the meds are good, but they only do so much, especially given the extent of injuries elsewhere. Cracked ribs, multiple lacerations…"

"Bacteraemia?"

"Closer to sepsis."

"Jesus."

"Yeah." Virgil glared at the floor tiles as though he held them personally accountable. "So I had to sign off on an emergency transfusion, because John was with you and Alan and trying to get a hold of Brains, except…well, you know the risks with that. Extensive blood loss already was going to cause problems."

"Virg, what happened?"

"What happened is that John and I had to sit there outside an operating theatre with the doctors admitting that they didn't think he was gonna make it. And I mean, hell, I have medical training. I understood their notes. They weren't lying to us. I saw those stats for myself, they were really bad, Gordo. But Scott's stubborn and he's healthy and young which were all points in his favour, so he pulled through. You know. Obviously."

"And now?"

"God, stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Stop knowing me so well."

"Sorry." Gordon offered him a tentative smile. "Occupational hazard of being a team."

Virgil didn't laugh but he looked more in control than he had minutes before. He tilted his chair back onto the back legs and stared up at the ceiling. "Now, he's recovering."

"So why are you still so worried? Brains is working on something, you said so yourself."

"Brains is working on something essentially to jump start his immune system; a way to speed up the recovery process to limit the risks of… permanent damage."

Gordon sat in silence. The air-con was too high, but it had nothing to do with the sudden chill that plunged over him.

"That's…I…shit Virg. Come here."

Virgil always had been the affectionate one – pats on the back, ruffling hair, a gentle touch to a shoulder; something in which Alan took after him – but the way he practically melted into Gordon's arms spoke measures about how overwhelmed he was. Gordon wrapped his arms around him and held on tightly, Virgil practically burying his face in his shoulder and shaking. Gordon decided not to mention it.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" Virgil mumbled from where his face was hidden in Gordon's shirt. "You did the best you could."

"I should have…I don't know. I just…"

"It's a lot to take in. I get it."

"No, I'm okay, I just… On the island, I knew it was bad. Like really bad. I honest-to-god thought he was going to die Virg, and he thought that too. Full on fucking death bed confessions. But the idea that we got back to safety and still almost lost him…that's insane." He clenched his fists, took a breath, and relaxed again. "No wonder John's acting weird."

Virgil gave a damp laugh. "John's always weird."

"True. We call him space-case for a reason." Gordon ran a hand up and down Virgil's back a couple more times until he was satisfied that the tremors had stopped. "You good?"

"No." Virgil sat up and offered him a trembling smile. "But I'm better than before. Thanks."

"You needed it." Gordon waved a hand. "Anyway, we're a team. I've got your back, you've got mine, yada yada."

"Really Gordon. Thank you."

Gordon stood up to hide his grin. "Alright, don't start crying again." He held out a hand. "Come on, we'd better get back in there before Alan starts worrying the drinks machine ate us."

"Machine…ate us?"

"Transformers in the late twenty-twenties was a dark time for comics."

Virgil shook his head. "I'm not going to ask."

"Probably best."

They walked in silence for a moment.

"Hey Virgil?"

"Hmm?"

Gordon fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt. "Thanks for telling me."

"You're not a kid, Gordo." Virgil hesitated in front of the door. "You deserve the truth. Like you said, we're a team. Teams work on trust."

"You see, I'm glad you said that, because you're going to have to trust me when I tell you not to open the backpack you left in my room."

"Oh God, why?"

"No reason in particular. Might have rigged it with a glitter bomb. Possibly." Gordon audibly groaned at the look he was treated to. "Look, I feel bad about pranking you now." He held up a finger in warning. "Don't count on it lasting long."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Virgil reached for the door handle. "Ready?"

Gordon stepped up to stand next to him. "Always."


	9. Chapter Nine

Alan knew when his brothers had disappeared out of the door that they were not headed for the café, or even to the nearest vending machine. His request for a hot chocolate had been purely to irritate them, but also, perhaps, to give them an excuse for extra time. The dark seriousness that had plagued Gordon since he'd picked up that tablet, believing that Alan hadn't been paying attention, was mirrored in Virgil's hunched shoulders and heavy steps. Alan watched them leave with a silent hope that whatever it was that was bothering them, they'd talk it out. Not that they were only ones harbouring secrets, he thought to himself with a pang of guilt.

"You feeling any better?" He asked Scott, dragging himself out of his thoughts.

The cocktail of pain meds and antibiotics that Scott was on had apparently loosened his tongue, for he hesitated before answering more truthfully than Alan had expected. "I don't really feel anything right now."

Across the room, John looked up with narrowed eyes, obviously biting back a comment.

"Not like that," Scott continued, as though Alan had any idea what he was referring to. "I mean, these meds are strong. I just feel sort of floaty, you know? But yes, nothing hurts anymore, so I guess I am feeling better."

Alan flopped down onto his front and wriggled his way up the bed, sheets catching about his slippers until he was tangled in a mess of blankets half-sprawled against Scott's side. "That's…good?"

"Yeah." Scott broke into a grin. "Floaty."

"Oh Jesus," John muttered from his position draped against the wall. He'd never seemed at ease on Earth, as though he were constantly battling gravity, all long limbs and too skinny. This hadn't changed in the time Alan had been away it seemed, for he looked as out of place in the hospital room as he had done in the café he'd sat down in with Alan whilst Gordon had still been unconscious. Now he unravelled himself from his perch and came to join them. "Scott?"

"Yeah?"

There was a glimmer of amusement in John's eyes, but it was quickly hidden. "How much have you had?"

Scott frowned. "I don't know." He waved a hand at the collection of equipment next to his bed. "They gave me the button thing and said to press it when stuff hurt."

"What's the betting he pressed it more than once by accident?" Alan asked, trying his best not to laugh. A shadow fell under the door and he paused, listening carefully. Moments later, Gordon and Virgil emerged, notably drink-less. Alan sat up and stared at them. "Where's my hot chocolate?"

"Machine was broken," Gordon told him casually, sinking down into one of the chairs with a leisurely stretch. "Sorry short-stuff."

"Don't call me that."

Gordon tilted his head and blinked at him. Alan shook his head and offered a thumbs up; a silent conversation that no-one else was a part of. You good? Yes. Did you know we weren't going for drinks? Obviously.

"We need to cut down on the meds," John told Virgil, pausing as he glimpsed his brother's expression. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Fine."

John watched him suspiciously, clearly not convinced, but accepted this. "Scott's going a bit loopy on meds."

"Like Gordon loopy or…?"

"Hey!" Gordon protested loudly, "I heard that."

"Yeah," Scott parroted in delight, "he heard that."

Alan, in complete synchronisation with Gordon, broke down in laughter. Scott patted his head clumsily. "Allie, no, stop that."

"What did he take?" Gordon spluttered between laughs.

"Apparently the same stuff you did," John replied in a long-suffering tone of voice that had very little effect given the warm smile he was directing towards his siblings. "Scott," he told him gravely, "you're a bit of an idiot."

"No."

"Yes," John continued, "but we love you anyway, so it's okay. But what I do think would be a good idea would be if you took another nap."

"But he only just woke up," Alan protested, cutting himself off when he glimpsed the yawn that Scott was trying to conceal behind his hands. "Alright." He clambered off the bed heavily with a sigh and trotted over to join John. "Do we have to leave or…?"

"I'll buy you a hot chocolate," John told him, looping an arm around Alan's shoulders. "And I actually will, unlike Virgil." He tossed a grin at his brother to show that he was merely teasing. "Come on."

Gordon hovered uncertainly at the end of the bed as they left the room, Alan's voice still audible until the door had clicked shut. Virgil, heading after them, paused and glanced back at him.

"Are you coming?"

"Yeah." Gordon tapped his fingers along the safety rail and finally lifted his chin to meet his brother's gaze. "Can you give me a minute?"

Virgil's confused look cleared with understanding. He gave a short nod and left, pulling the door shut behind him, footsteps dissipating into the distance. Gordon waited a beat longer before turning on his heels and marching over to the side of the bed. Scott squinted up at him.

"Qué?"

Gordon fiddled with his shirt. "Are you…I mean, on a scale of one to ten, how out of it are you?"

Scott's brow creased with concentration. "Like a six?"

"Good enough." Gordon nudged Scott's hand out of the way so he could sit down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight as he lifted his leg up to rest it on the spare chair. "Is everything I say going in one ear and out the other?"

"I'll try my best."

Scott certainly seemed earnest enough and, to be perfectly honest, Gordon wouldn't mind if his brother did forget most of the details of their conversation. But the fact remained that everything he had learnt from Virgil was going to replay on repeat in his brain like a broken record – there were things that he needed to say, and then there were the things that he didn't think he'd ever be able to voice aloud, but at least he still had the chance. There was possibly another universe in which he hadn't been quite so lucky, and the ground swam under his feet at just the thought of it.

"Gordon?"

He ran a hand though his hair. "How much do you remember?"

"You and Alan. Feeling really damn ill." Scott knew instinctively what he was referring to. "It all became a blur. I know you were upset at some point. You know when…" he gestured vaguely with his hands, "everything is too much, so you just block it out?"

"Trust me, I know the feeling."

"Think of it like that." Scott sighed, exhaustion pooling in the dark circles beneath his eyes. "I don't know, Gords, maybe I'll remember more when I'm not high on meds. Everything's still blurry. Floaty. Like the sea."

The brief lucidity was fading again, and fast. Gordon lurched forwards and seized Scott's shoulder, freezing on the spot. "Scotty, you were really… it was bad. Okay? So…"

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Gordon, I get it." Scott reached up and Gordon leant down further, pressing his forehead into Scott's outstretched hand. "You don't have to say anything because I know."

"Okay." Gordon tugged Scott's hand back down to the mattress and held it there with his own, hesitating. "Last time I left, you nearly died."

"I won't."

"You said that last time too."

Scott blinked, eyes unnaturally bright with both the glaze of medication and sickness. "Alright, well, I'm sorry about that." He fought back a yawn. "I don't think…crap. There was something I was gonna say. Don't know what it was."

Gordon huffed a laugh. "Meds are a bitch."

"Hmm. I'm not sure about that. They feel pretty good."

"You won't say that when you're back to your senses."

Scott smiled dazedly. "Probably not," he agreed.

Gordon reached across to the touchpad on the wall and spun the dial, dimming the lights down to a much more reasonable blue glow, not unlike One's silo late at night, only minus the silver luminescence and you know, a rocket. There was a heavy weariness that he couldn't shake – an overwhelming, nagging sense of wrong that he was unable to pinpoint – that kept his fingers trembling and tension holding him captive.

"You asleep?" He whispered into the dull light.

Scott made a noise of protest and opened his eyes again. "No."

"Oh. Okay."

There was another yawn. Scott struggled to shift himself upright, gave up, and settled back into the covers. "Hey, I'm not going anywhere."

Gordon eyed the bandages and machines. "That much is obvious."

"No. You know what I mean."

"You were supposed to be safe once we got off that damn island."

"Sorry."

"Don't." Gordon bit his lip. "I should go. You need to sleep."

"Hey, hey, Gordo, Fish, wait." Scott caught his hand and tugged him back to the bed. He was obviously exhausted, but that familiar Tracy stubbornness was there all the same, blazing with the concern and fierce protectiveness that Gordon had found irritating during his early teens, but now welcomed – to a certain extent, anyhow.

"What's wrong?"

"You don't have to leave."

Gordon went to speak, but found his words dying in his throat. "You sure?"

"Mmhmm." Another yawn. Scott gripped his hand tighter, like a lifeline. Gordon found himself thrown back into the memory of that storm all those days ago and squeezed back.

"Alright."

Scott fixed a determined stare of assurance on him. "Stay," he murmured, voice soft with a mixture of medication and usually concealed emotion.

"Okay," Gordon whispered back. "I'll stay."

A lifeline in the storm; apparently it worked both ways.

-

Voices poked through the hazy mess of dreams that he was currently trapped in; all agitated tones and underlying outrage.

"You're going to bring this up now?"

"When would you rather I brought it up – when the GDF are physically pulling him off Thunderbird Two and into an interrogation room?"

"For God's sake John, Gordon hasn't even been cleared to sign out of hospital yet, and Scott's still doped up on more meds than I don't know what. Even Alan's not ready to go back on duty, and you want to do what - hand them over to the GDF?"

There was a weary sigh. The sounds of a chair screeching across the floor as someone sat down heavily into it. A faint buzz of a hologram projector whirring into life. "No. Contrary to your apparent belief, Virgil, I'm not a completely cold-hearted bastard. I don't want to hand our brothers over to the GDF, but we might not have any other choice."

A lengthy pause resounded about the room, creeping into the corners and shadows and gaps under the chairs and bed. Virgil cleared his throat and tried to soften his voice.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing you."

The door flung open and was caught just before it smashed into the opposite wall. A small voice echoed "oops" before footsteps pattered across the floor and a light weight settled onto the mattress. Gordon whined in protest, shifting away from the hands that batted at his face, and burrowed further into the mattress.

"That chair can't be comfortable," Alan commented, his voice frustratingly loud and cheerful.

Gordon startled awake fully – he wasn't even sure when he'd fallen asleep – promptly tilted out of the seat and flailed as he slid towards the floor at an alarming rate. Arms caught him before he could collide with the tiles, light laughter undercut by concern.

"Are you alright?" This time it was Virgil who had spoken. John was still stood at the end of the bed, a yawning Alan leant against his side – he'd apparently scrambled off of the mattress to avoid being smacked in the face.

Gordon blinked. "What?" The world tilted alarmingly to the right. "Oh, wow, head rush." There was an exasperated sigh and then Virgil was helping him back to his feet. Gordon stumbled for a moment, caught himself, and rested his head on his brother's shoulder. "Ah, my saviour."

Virgil dropped him onto the bed with a groan. "And he's back."

For a moment, there was silence.

Gordon and Alan looked at each other. John draped the hood of the Harvard top over Alan's head and he yelped, trying to free himself. Virgil stifled a laugh. Alan threw a pillow at him, which he ducked and promptly tossed back with deadly accuracy. The youngest Tracy slid down onto the mattress, arms flailing madly and catching John in the ribs, who gave a choked cry, lost his balance, and tumbled onto the floor. Virgil watched the chaos with the upmost glee and started laughing again.

Amongst the unfolding disaster, Scott appeared to have fumbled his way back to the world of the living, clawing and clinging to consciousness until he was fully awake. The sounds of voices and raised laughter was so comfortingly familiar thst he mustered up the strength to push himself upright. The pain across his chest flamed up, but nowhere near the full-force agony of before; rather more of a dull ache, and he fought through it.

"Wow," he commented, observing the tangled mess of brothers on the floor. "Thousands of miles away from home and nothing's changed."

Alan bolted upright, scrambled free of John's hold, and promptly tripped over his own feet. "Scott!"

"Careful Allie." Scott flung out an arm instinctively.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Alan picked himself up. "See?"

"Complete disasters, all of you," John muttered, settling on a nearby chair. At Virgil's whispered superiority complex, much? He turned his back on them all in favour of scrolling through the news alerts on his watch. EOS's icon was hovering over his wrist, unspeaking, but present enough to be accepted as part of the company.

Gordon remained curled up on his own seat, leaning against the window. It was late at night, or so he gathered from the sky outside, and the glass was cold against his skin. The background noise of upbeat conversation and teasing jokes sang of home and he closed his eyes for a moment, only returning his attention to the conversation when his name was called. The more time he spent off his meds, the more he felt as though none of this were real – he kept expecting to jolt awake on a beach breaking from a fever.

Virgil was watching him, gentle concern playing across his face. "Gordon? You're being suspiciously quiet."

"Huh?"

Everyone was looking at him. Gordon quickly offered up a grin, trying not to catch Virgil's or John's eye – he couldn't help but think back over the snatches of conversation that he'd caught the end of before Alan had barged into the room. Whatever it was that they'd been discussing, it had involved him, and he hated being out of the loop.

"I overheard you talking," he admitted in a rush. He looped the loose hem of his shirt over his fingers, twisted it, and let go again, tapping his heels against the floor nervously. "Before Alan came in, and Scott woke up."

John and Virgil exchanged a long, unidentifiable look. Alan's eyes flickered between the two of them, confusion evident in the slight tilt of his head, the rigidness of his back as he sat up, cross-legged on the edge of the bed. Scott reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuring and grounding.

"What's he talking about?" Alan tensed further, and Scott tightened his grip until the teenager relaxed a little more. "Virgil? John?"

Virgil held up his hands. "Your call."

"Thank you, as ever, for your undying support, Virgil," John drawled, voice dripping with sarcasm. He lent forwards on his chair, balancing his elbows on his knees, and fixed them all with a serious look. Scott nudged Alan further towards his side and Alan obligingly lay down on his stomach, legs kicking over the side of the bed to grant his brother a better view.

"We've been in contact with the GDF since the three of you disappeared," John began, voice halting and hesitant as he continued.

"At first we thought they were just being helpful," Virgil added, "I mean, it made sense – Colonel Casey's been our family friend for years, since before Alan was born, and I thought that the directive to help International Rescue was coming straight from her. John had his suspicions from the very beginning, but to be perfectly honest we needed all the support we could get." He sighed. "No one can deny that the GDF have great resources, and…well, we needed a bit of that."

"EOS was helping from the second I lost contact with you," John picked up the tale. "She alerted me to the fact that most communications from the GDF weren't actually direct orders from Casey at all."

"So, who were they coming from?" Gordon asked, twisting in his seat.

John shrugged. "I don't where the first order originated, but I do know that it reached Colonel Casey's level soon enough, because she contacted me by the Monday, at which point I gave in and agreed to work with the GDF. It never made sense to me how they discovered so quickly that we were missing you guys given I hadn't made any calls outside of Tracy Island and Thunderbird Two still. Turns out I was right – the reason they had forces on the scene so soon was because they were already in the area."

"They were following a lead on the Chaos Crew," Alan guessed.

John gave him a nod. "Exactly."

"Wait, I'm confused." Gordon sat up, swung his legs around onto the floor and actually tried to look as serious as he could manage. There was a warning bell blaring in his mind that something didn't quite make sense. "If the GDF helped you, then what were you and Virgil so worried about?"

Scott obviously wanted to speak up, but visibly forced himself to keep quiet. The blankets were seized in a white-knuckle grip, but his other hand relaxed as it lay on Alan's shoulder.

"Because it didn't end there." John spun a hologram into view from his watch, EOS's symbol projected above it in pale blues and whites. "The GDF kept contacting me. Whoever tipped them off about the Chaos Crew in the first place suggested that it was something big and possibly a global security threat. They know that you three were on the same island as Havoc and Fuse, and they want to call you in and speak to you about what you know."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Gordon spoke up gingerly. He noted the way Virgil looked away, staring at his shoes intently. "You're saying they only want to interview us?"

"The GDF are still technically a military organisation," Scott finally announced, the words that had been on the tip of his tongue for the entire conversation coming to light in a rush. "Their intentions are good – providing global security and maintaining peace – but they've been compromised more than once in the past and their methods leave much to be desired."

"To put it simply," John muttered darkly, "I trust them about as far as I can throw them."

Gordon decided not to mention that if that was in space, then it would be infinitely far. He imagined such a comment would not be welcomed.

Alan remained very quiet. He placed his hands in his lap and entwined his fingers, clicking his knuckles and doing everything he possibly could to avoid catching anyone's eye. His jaw was clenched with tension, blue eyes narrowed to a stony glare. Gordon didn't call him out on it.

"Scott's medical records prove to them now that he wouldn't have seen let alone remember anything of use," Virgil continued. "And given Alan's under eighteen, they can't pull him in for an interrogation without his legal guardian present."

"And seeing as his legal guardian is currently laying in a hospital bed," Scott added dryly, "I don't think that's happening any time soon." He tugged Alan closer subconsciously. "Not that I'd give them consent to interview Alan anyway."

"I'm over eighteen." Gordon's voice rang too loud in the room and he shivered. "If they have enough evidence to prove that I might know info regarding something as a high of a threat level as the Chaos Crew then…"

"Then they can technically file for a warrant and bring you in for questioning, yes." John snapped his fingers at EOS's icon. "EOS and I have been holding the GDF off for this long, but there's only so much we can do, especially given the fact that EOS isn't even supposed to exist. Colonel Casey is turning a blind eye to the fact that we're technically breaking about five international laws regarding artificial intelligence, but if we stay rooting around in their systems for much longer, someone's gonna catch on."

"But I don't know anything." Gordon's voice had risen without him realising and he took a moment to catch a breath. The light tremors skittering through his hands were back, and he tucked them under his thighs to hide it from view. "I'm serious, all I saw was the Chaos Cruiser, and that was only from the outside." He stared down at his leg brace and added, in a shaky whisper, "I can't remember the fight. I didn't even know Alan had been hurt until yesterday."

"The GDF have reason to believe you do have information, and they're not about to give up anytime soon," EOS announced. "Good evening Scott," she added brightly. "It's good to see you're feeling better."

John didn't even try to hide the proud smile on his face as he overheard his AI. Scott, for all his distrust of EOS, grudgingly nodded.

"Thanks."

"We could file a second report?" Virgil considered aloud. "Put in a record stating that Gordon's not fit to answer questions on medical grounds."

"The hospital would never sign off on it," Scott pointed out. "Although…" A smirk crossed his face – Gordon and Alan weren't the only devious ones in the family. "Brains might do."

"And how long would that last?" John, ever the logical one, brought up the obvious. "Those run out of date after a year, or even six months depending on which one you file for. As soon as it did the GDF would be on him like a ton of bricks."

"Plus, the second they spot me out in Four they'll realise I'm a lot healthier than we claimed." Gordon ran a finger along the glass, collecting condensation in a small pool in the corner. "I don't know how the GDF treat people at the moment, but I'm willing to bet that it's a lot worse when they think you've been lying to them."

Silence settled over the room in a heavy shroud. Gordon wanted nothing more than to spring to his feet and start pacing, but his leg was painful given the minimal meds he was on, and he didn't want to cause more damage. Damn, he could really do with a swim. "Scott," he whispered, a sudden thought dawning on him in a rush, "scale me. One to ten – how bad is it?"

"It depends. They're still bound by the human rights laws, it's just…not an environment I feel comfortable leaving you in. They want to get information and if that means breaking you to get it then…well, it's their job. Not everyone is bound by their morals."

Gordon flinched. "Breaking?"

Scott rarely talked about his time in the Air Force. To this day, Gordon believed that the only people who knew the true details were their father and John. Even Virgil was in the dark. But there was the steely darkness of someone who knew all too well what it meant to be on the wrong side of a military presence, and Scott held it close to his chest like playing cards. "Torture is illegal." A hush fell across them. "But…other psychological methods aren't. The GDF know lots of things about everyone. Most of that is to keep the world safe, but it also means that they know exactly how to play you – which fears to exploit until you just want to get the hell out of there, so you tell them what it is that they want to know."

"I don't exactly have a dark past, what is there that they can focus on?"

"Mom, Dad, us. Hydrofoil incident. Any rescues that ever went wrong with IR… they'll find something, and they'll keep at it as long as they believe you know something."

Gordon bit down on his lip hard enough to taste copper. When he looked up, he caught Virgil's eye and knew they were thinking the same thing, why does it sound like he's speaking from experience?

"They won't go after Scott, so that leaves me and Alan, but they can't go after Alan unless Scott gives permission, or they go through the entire damn legal system."

"They won't," EOS promised, genuine protectiveness alight in her voice and surprising even John. "I'd block them. They'd never get it through the first stages."

"Well that's…reassuring? My point is that I'm the only one left. How likely are they to give up?"

John slumped further into his chair. "Not very. Whatever it is that they think the Chaos Crew are building, it's…something."

"Okay."

Virgil looked up. "And what exactly does that mean?" He strode across the room and for the first time Gordon understood why some people found his brother intimidating. "Gordon?"

"It means okay. As in okay, I'll do it."

"Are you out of your fucking mind? No way." Virgil was practically bristling with anger. "Someone back me up here. Scott?"

"Virgil's right. We'll figure out another way. You don't know anything, so there's no reason for you to go through all that."

"We don't even know that they will put me through anything," Gordon protested. "And if we fight them on this then we're risking too much." He heaved himself to his feet and stood up to his full height. Virgil may be the taller of them, but Gordon knew how to hold the attention of a room, and he was good at it. "Tell me how many extra countries we're now allowed to fly across and help in because of the GDF's input?" Silence. "No, actually tell me."

"Twenty," John said quietly.

"Exactly! Twenty!" Gordon spun on the spot to face Scott. "That's millions of people. We can't risk losing the GDF's support over this." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'll do it. They can throw whatever they want at me, I can take it."

"This is bullshit…"

"Virgil, I was in a coma for almost three months, don't you dare tell me that I'm not mentally strong enough to deal with something that may not even happen."

Virgil finally shut up. He took a step back, shaking his head. "Gordon…"

"Hey. I'll be fine. I'll just tell them about the explosion me and Alan heard and about the tire-tracks we saw the Chaos Cruiser travelling through, and that's it. It's the truth – they can't argue with the truth." Gordon reached out and hesitantly placed a hand on Virgil's shoulder. "Please Virg. You've gotta trust me with this. It makes sense."

Virgil met his gaze and his expression crumbled. "Actually," he said softly, "it's Alan and I. C'mon Gordy, we've been over this."

Gordon's shoulder slumped. It wasn't an exact confirmation that Virgil was backing down, but they'd never needed words to communicate everything. Sometimes the truth could only be translated through things beyond the human comprehension of languages. Either way, it was a silent promise that Virgil had his back.

The only voice that hadn't been heard throughout the encounter finally spoke up.

"Fuck this." Alan was trembling from head to toe with barely restrained rage and fear. There was something else – closely concealed – and his voice was tight with emotion. "They can't go after you for information you don't have."

Gordon took a step towards him. "Alan…"

"No, you know what? Screw you Gordon. You don't get to throw yourself from one bad situation head-first into another. What the hell are you trying to prove?"

"I'm not trying to prove anything!"

"You can't do this."

"Feel free to name an alternative."

"Just don't go. Don't fucking go. Let EOS do her thing."

Gordon stared at him incredulously. "I'm not risking EOS for no reason. I've got nothing to hide, I'm just going to tell them the truth."

"And if they don't like your answers?"

"I'll deal with it."

"That's total crap and you know it." Alan jumped down from the bed and stalked up to him. "They won't believe you because they know there was something else out there."

Not for the first time, something akin to a dark realisation followed by understanding settled on Scott's face and he muttered a curse into his fists. Alan, standing in front of him as stubborn and as determined as every other Tracy before him, held his head high and continued.

"Why wouldn't they…" Gordon trailed off. "What do you mean, there was something else out there?"

Alan took a shaky breath but held his ground. "You can't go because the GDF will figure out within minutes that they've got the wrong guy." He tugged on the drawstrings of his hoodie and looked up, making sure he had the attention of all his brothers. "Gordon doesn't know anything about the Chaos Crew, but I do. I was on their ship and after I made the call to John…I was trying to wreck the entire thing as much as possible and I hit one of the hologram projectors. It opened on one of their last opened files. I know what they're trying to build."

It seemed strange that a room once filled with so many voices could fall so achingly silent in such a short space of time, but Gordon could have sworn he could have heard a pin drop. He was aware that he was distantly shaking, as though he'd been plunged in an icy ocean of realisation and knowledge that Alan was really damn good at keeping secrets, and if he could keep this one so close to his chest then what else could he be hiding?

"Why didn't you say anything?" Surprisingly, it was John who spoke up. Virgil was frozen to the spot, and Scott merely looked resigned.

Alan's voice was trembling, but he stared straight ahead. "Because I already knew those designs. I've seen those schematics a dozen times, Johnny, maybe even more."

"How?" Virgil's voice was scarcely a whisper. "How the hell could you have seen those, Alan? Whatever the Chaos Crew is building is designed by the Hood."

"No." Alan shook his head, eyes filling with tears. "No, it's not. What they're building is designed by Brains. That's why I didn't say anything, because I didn't think…I mean, it's got to be a coincidence, right? Brains wouldn't…he's family. I didn't think the GD-bloody-F were gonna get involved. I just…we can't tell them."

"You're right." Scott agreed darkly. "We can't. Not without answers."

"Brains isn't working for the Hood," Alan repeated vehemently. "No way."

John looked devastated, but his voice was clear. "Isn't he?"


	10. Chapter Ten

Here's the funny thing about trust – once it's broken, or put into question, it's incredibly hard to regain it. But when that same trust that's being scrutinised on the tipping-plate is combined with genuine love – well, it's a little bit harder to break it down. Brains was family – and had been for a very long time now – and with family came all the tags of support and forgiveness and a silent promise to question every last detail before giving up the warmth of trust that had been present for so many years.

If it came down to merely the evidence at hand versus Brains's word, then Gordon knew instantly which he'd choose. There were too many years, too many instances, too much evidence to the contrary, for him not to trust his friend.

There's this problem with thoughts – no matter how insane they seem – how impossibly out of the question and ludicrous they are – they will take root in your brain and wriggle in deep, cropping up in your consciousness in a wave of what ifs and unanswered questions. So yes, Gordon trusted Brains, but no, this didn't mean he didn't have a whole series of queries and hurt that needed answers. This wasn't as plain and simple as a spat between family members – this put International Rescue at stake, and therefore so many thousands of others – and while Brains had a hell of a lot of secrets that he kept them in the dark over, this was one that demanded an explanation. There wasn't really any other choice and Gordon hated not having options.

"It's bullshit," he muttered, and kicked the sideboard with his good leg, just to reinforce the sincerity of his statement. Scott, who had previously been preoccupied with staring at the door that Virgil had just stormed out of, glanced at him. Gordon crossed his arms and glared back. "What?"

There was slightly more venom in his voice than he'd meant, but Scott got it. "Nothing. I agree with you, just so we're clear."

There was suspicious crash from the hallway, as though a foot was colliding with something heavy and metal. Scott winced and Gordon instinctively sat up, ever drawn to chaos. John sidled closer to the door.

"I'll go check on him."

It wasn't often that Virgil let go into a full-on breakdown, but when he did it was usually Scott or John who went after him. Given Scott was currently stuck in a hospital bed, there wasn't really any reason to argue with this, so John slipped out the door after their missing sibling and left them all in the dark as angry shouts descended into muffled voices and broken laughter.

"I mean," Gordon continued, desperate to fill the silence with something. "It's Brains. He's put everything on the line more than once for us." He hesitated but carried on. "It was a high-pressure situation back on the island, and we were both hurt and exhausted, so you could've…I don't know…missed something? Mistaken the designs? Not seen them clearly?"

Alan raised his head and stared incredulously at him. "I'm not a liar."

"I'm not saying that you are, I'm just raising a couple of questions."

"You're insinuating."

"I can ask questions Alan, this is a democracy. Jeez."

"Why the hell would I make this up?"

Gordon dragged himself off his chair and limped closer. He was missing his crutches already – leaving them in his room as a display of defiance towards the hospital authority had seemed cool and edgy earlier but now it was pure regret. "I didn't say you made it up," he pointed out, raising his hands in a gesture of peace, "I'm suggesting you made a mistake."

"Oh yes," Alan hissed, "I'm always making mistakes that paint our family as criminals and possible murderers. That's an average Saturday for me."

"There was that one time that you accused John of a bank heist."

"Alright!" Scott's voice cut through the air like a knife, unusually close to his Field Commander tones given his recent brush with death. Even exhausted and in need of a good shower, he still managed to command the attention of the room without too much effort; something which Gordon envied at times. "That's enough."

Alan, eyes still blazing with righteous fury, stepped back, sliding his hands into his pockets and clenching his jaw so tight that Gordon could have sworn he could hear the teeth grinding together. For the first time in possibly ever, he recognised that Alan was almost an adult, and could probably take him in a fight now. He rolled his shoulders until something clicked and sighed, pressing his palms to his eyes and yawning.

"Sorry Al," he murmured. "This is just kinda crazy, y'know?"

"Crazy doesn't cover it," Scott admitted, "but we'll figure it out. We always do."

"Not always." Gordon was speaking before he'd even realised the words were in his head. "We didn't figure out Dad."

It was too late to take the words back and he recognised this as soon as he'd spoken. He made a hesitant smile as if to suggest that the whole thing had been a joke, but there was no hope left. It was a cruel comparison and while as a general rule he was not a malicious person, there was a deep, dark part of him that was angry at Alan for bringing the whole thing to their attention in the first place, so when his brother turned as pale as the white lights above them and made a dash for the bathroom on shaking legs, it took him a moment to dig past the slippery, twisted satisfaction and delve into the painful guilt instead.

"This entire thing is a nightmare," Scott muttered, one hand pressed to his head as though fighting off a headache. His eyes were closed, but Gordon knew him well enough to understand that his brother was flying through a whole checklist of things right around now. "Why don't you add to it?"

Gordon opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the painful sounds of retching from behind the bathroom door. "Crap."

Scott lifted his hand to shoot him a scorching stare of disapproval all wrapped in a neat bow of expectation. It was mildly terrifying and – not for the first time – Gordon was reminded of how eerily similar his eldest brother was to their father. "Fix this."

He resorted back to bad humour and sarcasm. "The entire mess or…?"

"Gordon, please." The sharp edge of desperation was unnatural, and Gordon snapped into serious mode. "I can't do anything right now. I can't even get out of this damn bed, so do me a favour and go and make sure Alan's okay."

Gordon gave him a sharp nod. "FAB."

It was pitch black in the en-suite, so much so that Gordon almost tripped over Alan's feet when he first stepped into the room. He flicked a hand at the light sensor and drew the LEDs along the walls into a pale glow, just light enough to glimpse his way around, but dim enough to maintain the sense of safety that came with the anonymity of darkness. Alan's legs were outstretched across the floor, the teenager himself sprawled against the edge of the toilet. Gordon nudged the door shut with one foot and sat down next to him – Alan was growing again, like some sort of mutant weed, and there was a depressing fear in his mind that the kid might end being taller than him, which would land him with the label of being the shortest Tracy brother. Still, this was a problem to be agonised over on another day.

"Hey."

Alan barely acknowledged him, instead opting to lunge further over the bowl and bring up whatever he had eaten in the past twenty-four hours. He was trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, and Gordon hesitantly pressed a hand to the skinny shoulders in front of him. Alan usually welcomed physically comfort but they had technically just argued, and he wasn't exactly happy about the idea of pushing boundaries at the moment. His brother seemed to melt into the touch however, and Gordon continued to rub circles across his upper back.

"Just try to breathe through it," he advised. "It'll be over soon."

Ordinarily this would have earnt him a sarcastic stare from Alan, as if to say well duh, but the younger Tracy was a bit preoccupied, so Gordon shuffled a little closer and remained quiet. It took a couple more moments, but then Alan dropped his head onto the cold rim of the seat and groaned.

"You good?"

"God no."

Gordon hummed. "Figured as much." He made a grab for the nearest hand-towel and drenched it under the tap, wringing it out as best he could. "Take this." He passed it to Alan and guided his brother back to sit against the far wall. He wasn't exactly used to the whole caregiver thing – this was Scott and Virgil's forte - plus there was the fact that he was usually the one in need of the help – but he managed to fumble through it all – flushing the toilet, grabbing a second towel, managing to find a couple of painkillers for the headache Alan was sporting all the symptoms of and struggling out of his t-shirt and forcing Alan to change into it. This last decision was probably a poor choice because now he was sat topless in an overly-air-conditioned bathroom, but hey, if it helped Alan feel a bit better, then he was all for it. He hoped John wasn't too attached to his Harvard hoodie though, because that thing was going straight in the wash.

"I didn't want it to be true," Alan whispered. He fiddled with the towel in his lap. "And it didn't seem true until I said it out loud. But now it does, and I feel even worse than I did before."

"Yeah." Gordon sighed. "It sucks."

Alan gave a weak smile at that. "It does."

Light danced across the polished surface of the shower door. Gordon reached out a hand and let it dance across his fingertips – so similar to the marbled sunlight of a swimming-pool, but so different all at once. "You gonna throw up again?"

Alan grimaced. "Nope."

"Good." Gordon shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his sweatpants. "I have Polos somewhere in here."

"What, like the mints?"

"No, the sport. Obviously the mints."

If Scott had been listening in – which he probably was – then he would have chastised Gordon for the sarcasm, but Gordon was betting on how well he knew his brother, and from the tearful chuckle he was treated to, his gamble had paid off. He retrieved the packet and fumbled with the wrapper. Alan stared at the lint attached to the edges and pulled a face.

"How long have you had those?"

Gordon sniffed them. "Three years?"

"Gross." Alan held out a hand. "Gimme one."

-

"Hey, hey, hey!"

A hand gripped Virgil's wrist before he could slam his fist into the side of the vending machine again. John may be the tall and lanky Tracy, but he was by no means weak, and this was proven by the way he didn't have to struggle too hard to tug his brother back from the metal-and-glass cabinet. He met Virgil's fuming look with a flicker of amusement.

"What did the vending machine ever do to you?"

"Stole my change for starters," Virgil spat, and lined up another kick at the tender glass where a celery crunch bar hung, caught by a single edge on the metal ring.

John observed this and raised a brow. "You don't even like those."

"No," Virgil muttered, smashing his foot into the machine with a grunt, "but Gordon does." The bar still refused to fall, and he slammed his hands into the front with a final strangled scream of frustration. "Move you…"

"Hey." John moved in front of him and caught his fists for a second time, holding their hands captive against his chest. "Virgil?" His voice was soft, not pressuring him to talk but assuring him that he was still there. Given everything else was falling apart, it was a promise that Virgil desperately needed.

"Fuck," he whispered in a shattered murmur, collapsing forwards, trusting John to catch him.

"I know," John agreed simply, and lowered them both to the floor, shoes scattering across the slippery tiles and hands fumbling to catch their combined weight. "I know." He tapped his brother's chest. "Take a breath." He offered a pleased smile when Virgil obliged. "Good. Now another one."

"Why?"

Gordon would have made some smartass comment like why do you need to take a breath? Well Virg, my man, let me tell you a thing about the body's need for oxygen… But John was not Gordon and he'd always had that blunt, factual way of dealing with things when the entire world was a mess and a maze all in one. It wasn't always reassuring, but it was something that Virgil needed to hear right now.

"EOS got into our systems in the past, and so did the Mechanic. It's not outside the realm of possibilities to assume that the Chaos Crew did too." John, not for the first time, looked exhausted beyond the usual physical tiredness. At any other time, Virgil would be worried about him, but they had more pressing concerns. "Havoc's tech abilities are outstanding. She hacked an entire GDF base with minimal effort – it really wouldn't surprise me if she'd managed to do the same with the IR network."

"It's your coding, John. Your coding is insane. It's better than the GDF. It's arguably the most secure server in the world."

John rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Thanks."

"The only reason EOS got in was because she was originally your code."

"Brains's lab is on a different system. It's his code, to help integrate MAX into everything. I offered to help him, but I think I came across as a bit insulting instead."

Virgil gave a weak chuckle. "Yeah, I can't imagine how that could have happened. You, John Tracy, coming across as condescending?"

"If you bring up the Caltech conference, I will ditch you in this hallway…"

"Caltech for example…"

"Virgil." John indulged in a pause of brief laughter. It had been a hell of a day – he figured he could allow himself to be unprofessional for a little while. "My point is that it's still possible. Havoc is capable of it. And…God, Virg, I know Brains. He wouldn't betray us."

Virgil sighed. That same ridiculous celery bar was still dangling just above his eyeline. "I don't know whether to be angry that Alan was prepared to keep that a secret or…"

John shifted to sit against the vending machine, his legs drawn up so that he could rest his arms and his watch on his knees. "Do you believe Brains did it?"

"Worked for the Hood?" Virgil didn't even need to think about it. "No. Alan's right – he's family. I just…Alan didn't know that for sure. Hell, we don't even know it for sure, we're going off belief and trust alone. But that tiny chance that we're all wrong…Alan could have put us all in danger."

"Virgil, he was being stubborn and loyal to his friends to the point of putting himself in danger. Believing in someone so utterly that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks…sound familiar?"

"No." Virgil gaped at him. "You are not turning this into some psychoanalysis session."

"You said it, not me. I'm just saying…those are your qualities too. The pair of you are more alike than you realise. You two and Gordon always see the best in people, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it does mean that you trust very easily." John tilted his head back in the glare of the spotlights. Virgil watched him, realising that this was the first time in a long while that he'd seen his brother every day for longer than forty-eight hours down planet-side. It was a long-standing joke that something usually went wrong when John came down to Earth – normally some sort of gravity-related accident – but this was really taking the biscuit. "I mean, Scott and I are probably too suspicious."

"You digitally stalked Gordon's last girlfriend because she, and I quote, 'walked strangely – clearly she's hiding something."

"And I was right," John replied with a smug look on his face. "She was hiding a distinct interest in journalism that she tried to turn into an exclusive article on," he made finger quotes, "The Real Tracy Brothers."

Virgil chuckled at that. The cursed celery-crunch bar finally dropped from its perch to deposit itself carefully in the collection box below and he tugged it free with a heavy sigh. He wasn't even sure why he'd bought it in the first place – perhaps looking out for his family was easier than confronting his own emotional turmoil.

EOS's icon lit up in a series of green and white rings. "John, I have an incoming notification. Would you like me to display it?"

"Go ahead."

Virgil tracked the long list of ingredients scrawled across the back of the crunch bar and grimaced, discovering that it was more chemicals than it was celery. The taste could have told him that alone, but the distraction was worth it. John's little growl of dissatisfaction was enough to signal that there had been a new development, and he tucked the bar into his pocket to give to Gordon later.

John didn't need to hear the question. "Penelope and Parker are almost here."

"Brains is with them."

John was fiddling with the ragged edge of his nail on his left thumb, a nervous tick that he had never quite grown out of since Middle School. His lack of response was an answer in itself. It seemed that every bombshell that was thrown at them came with a deadline – no time to grow used to the idea before they were forced to face the consequences. Whether Alan had been right or wrong, they had no other option than to question Brains, and it was a task that Virgil was not looking forward to, even with John at his side for the entire process. Not for the first time, Virgil wished desperately that Scott was back on his feet already – he'd never been one for confrontations.

"Ten minutes," John reported. EOS was spinning a steady loop of information that he was dismissing as soon as it appeared, much to her disapproval. "We should go down and meet them."

"What about the others?"

John didn't glance over at the closed door. "Leave them. Scott's still on bedrest and I doubt Alan is going to want to be there. Best to leave Gordon with them, just for now."

He climbed to his feet, all smooth movements and easy confidence that spoke of his IR persona, a business professional ready to deal with their problems one after the other, because truly there was no other choice. Virgil, for his part, wanted nothing to do with any of it. In fact, what he really wanted right now was a drink and a sketchpad in a nice spot somewhere near the lookout on Tracy Island.

"I don't want to do this."

John looked sympathetic but there was an icy steel to his blue eyes that hadn't been present previously. "I can do this without you, if you need."

It was a genuine offer, and an easy one to accept. John would never judge him for this – there was an unquestioned understanding between them that was infallible – but there was no choice, not really. Virgil accepted the hand up and met his brother's gaze squarely.

"I think this is something we need to do together."

There was a flash of a smile across John's face, quickly masked. "I'd agree with that."

They were the two most like their mother; this was something that they had heard multiple times throughout their lives – from friends and family alike – but in this instant, heading for the doors despite everything craving a sprint in the opposite direction – Virgil would have bet his life a hundred times over that they had never been more like their father.

Well. He glanced across at John, who was staring straight ahead, no doubt listening to EOS through his earpiece. There were some things you just couldn't run from, no matter who you were. Besides, finding the truth no matter what – that was a Jeff Tracy thing, and if their Dad was out there somewhere, then Virgil was damn sure that he wasn't going to let him down.

-

Gordon was technically not supposed to be here. But technicalities were the bane of his existence, and he refused to live in a world with so many restrictions so, as ever, he made his own rules and threw the consequences to his later self with a grin.

He'd dug through a bag that he'd found leant against a chair in Scott's room – the scattering of pencils at the base suggested it belonged to Virgil – until he'd found a spare shirt that roughly fitted him, swinging loosely about his shoulders like a cheap imitation of wings. Alan was sitting quietly in a chair by Scott's bed, unspeaking still, but Gordon had a sneaking suspicion that with a little peace and quiet their eldest brother would work wonders, so he left under the pretence of finding wherever John and Virgil had headed off to.

This hadn't been a lie, but once he'd found the corridor empty, he'd made the decision to head down to the café and grab a granola bar or something equally kind to the stomach for Alan to munch on – he knew from experience how weak and woeful being sick could make you.

He liked to believe that this meant he'd had the best of intentions when he'd set out. Of course, after spotting Virgil and John headed down to the visitors' entrance as though they were soldiers being summoned to the battlefield, he'd had no choice but to follow them. For their own good, because he'd been worried, obviously. Curiosity may have killed the cat but, as Grandma always told him, satisfaction brought it back.

Penelope looked as fantastic as ever when she stepped through the doors, not in the least bit perturbed by the heat outside. In a sleek black dress and simple heels, she looked the very picture of British grace and sophistication, Parker hovering by her side with a small suitcase. Brains stepped ahead of them, his glasses clutched between his hands, his thumb and forefinger rubbing across the brim worriedly, concern creasing his brow.

"How are they?"

Gordon pressed himself to the wall behind a large potted plant and watched. Virgil appeared to be choking on his words, but John stepped up, ever the diplomat. It was no wonder that he got along with Penelope so well.

"They've been better. How did your project go?"

Brains' eyes gleamed. "Everything's ready. I've tested it and then double tested it, and everything should work perfectly." The light dimmed in his gaze as he added, "but if Scott's body rejects the serum then…"

"Then we'll figure it out," John reassured him, and knocked his shoulder against Virgil's to try and jolt his brother back to reality. Virgil raised his chin and stared coolly at the scientist, the standoff lasting far beyond the point of what was socially acceptable.

Brains nervously fumbled to knock his glasses back into place. "Is something wrong?"

John and Virgil knew each other well, but Gordon knew Virgil better. He recognised the exact instant that John no longer had control over the situation – the moment when Virgil was about to snap.

"This is gonna be fun," he muttered sarcastically to the plant, and then ducked out of his hiding spot, slipping between his brothers and knocking Virgil out of his somewhat threatening stance. Brains looked relieved to see him, a genuine smile greeting his features.

Gordon had many skills that he'd picked up over his life – some legal, others not so much – but one of his best abilities was his talent for reading people. He took a moment to truly see his friend and noted the honest concern and relief that couldn't have been a falsehood in any universe. Brains stood with them, and he cared.

Gordon was no fool. He knew too well that his next move would probably have irreversible consequences and from the gazes boring into his back, his brothers knew it too. Brains wouldn't make the first move and the distance between them was much more than mere floor tiles – it was a lifetime of friendship, innovation and everything else on the line.

Where John was logical, Scott referred to his instincts. Gordon could sometimes be a blend of the two, but right now he was working purely on his gut feeling. Oh well – Grandma would be proud.

"Hey Brains," he greeted cheerfully, "long time no see?" And with that, he opened his arms and crossed the space between them.

Brains, like John, wasn't much of a hugger, but this was one embrace that he needed. Besides, Gordon was clinging to him like a limpet, and he didn't have much of a choice. Not that he minded, as he wrapped his arms around the aquanaut and hugged back.

"Are you alright?"

Gordon studied him for a moment. "Yes," he agreed finally, "I am. Well, almost. Still got a couple of things to sort out, but that's life I guess." He shook himself and flung a hand back, catching Virgil's wrist and dragging his brother forwards. "Virg? Don't you agree?"

It was a question with double meaning – a two-headed serpent of words – and Virgil knew what he was really asking – do you agree with me? Do you trust him too?

Virgil patted Brains's shoulder. "Absolutely."

"We appear to have missed some valuable developments." Penelope swept forwards in a glorious wave of perfection and perfume. Gordon tried to keep his mind on the important matters at hand. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to bring us all up to speed?"

John shot her a relieved smile. "FAB."

-

After signing Gordon out of the hospital with assurances that they had two official medics in their company, John tracked down the nearest twenty-four-hour café and they all trundled in, piling into the largest table in the far corner. John positioned himself with his back to the wall so that he had a clear view of his surroundings, including a direct eyeline to the street below. Rarely, Penelope had agreed to leave Sherbet in the car, and if John zoomed in with his contacts then he could glimpse a tuft of caramel fur where the little dog was curled up on the front seat, flanks rising and falling gently in sync with his breathing.

He settled his hands on the table alongside the EOS drive, and blinked the tiredness from his vision. Penelope took one look at the Tracy brothers and wisely made the move to give them a moment, Parker accompanying her to the counter. Virgil finished sneakily running a medical scan of Brains from his watch, and promptly demanded that the scientist went and got himself a meal too. It took a bit of coercing, but finally the other man gave in, tilting his glasses with a soft sigh.

John took a moment to examine his brothers. Virgil appeared almost resigned whereas Gordon…well, John couldn't remember when he'd last looked so exhausted. It was disconcerting – Gordon was always the optimist, and there was something almost defeated about the way he was slumped over the table, not even bothering to trace the whorls in the woodwork. Everything was so, so wrong that to even contemplate fixing it seemed monumental – a task for the insane. It was a good job that John liked a challenge.

It had reached that time of night between too late and too early when nothing seemed real and everything felt both possible and a mere pipe dream all at once. The café was a clone of every other in the twenty-four chain that sprawled across much of Asia and had migrated to Australia and New Zealand about a decade previously. Bright lights glared down, only serving to highlight the slumped position Gordon was currently holding, flopped over the table like a dead fish, arms sprawled hazardously.

John reached across and poked the mop of hair. Gordon made a grunt of protest, and, after more prodding, finally lifted his head to prop his chin up on one hand.

"What?"

John observed the glaze of tiredness and drawn expression of pain and, not for the first time, wanted to burn the whole damn galaxy for hurting his family in such a way, repeatedly. It seemed that for every time they saved the world, it turned on them and stabbed them in the back – the scorpion to their frog every single time.

There was no point in asking how Gordon was feeling. John had no patience for small talk when there was a job to be done, and Gordon had always been grateful for his no-nonsense attitude. If he needed someone to call him out on his bullshit, then it was John he came to, and right now, they all needed a little bit of that tough love.

"What are you thinking?"

Virgil slouched further into his chair, rocking onto the back two legs and balancing precariously. His eyes were closed but John had no doubts that he was listening.

Gordon dropped his hand and slid back down onto the table, staring mournfully at John. "I'm thinking a lot of things, Johnny-boy, take your pick. One, Three or whatever the hell we're calling Brains and Penelope these days." He flipped his hand palm-up and let the lights play across the faded grazes. "This dinner date is fun so far, let's do it again some time."

"Drop the mask."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Gordon."

Virgil's front chair legs slammed back into the tiles with a crash. At the counter, Penelope looked up with a pinched frown of displeasure. Virgil waved a hand at her in apology. "Are we doing this now?"

John ran a finger along the edge of the EOS drive. "We're not doing anything unless Gordon's with us." He dropped his hands to the table and wound his fingers together to stop himself from tapping. "If you need a break, we'll give it twenty-four hours before we start questioning Brains."

Gordon buried his face in his folded arms. "I want to go home," he whispered, voice treacherously shaky. "I just…the island was a nightmare, and it's like…"

"It's like you woke up in another one," Virgil finished for him, his voice soft and quiet in the dull air of the café.

"Yeah." There was a heavy exhale. "I just want to go home now."

John and Virgil exchanged a knowing look.

"If I could," John began, "then I'd take you back to Tracy Island right this minute, but I can't do that, and I think you know why. We need you here if we're going to figure out the truth."

"I get it. I can't hide from this." Gordon finally stopped burying his face in the spare fabric of the shirt about his arms. "And I can't hide from the GDF either, no matter what you guys say." He offered a hesitant smile. "So yeah John, I'm down."

John hadn't doubted him for a second, but he had to put on a show anyway. He switched his gaze to Virgil and raised a brow.

Virgil grimaced. "I don't know, are you going to buy me coffee?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

Penelope, as ever, had perfect timing. She swooped down, gliding into a chair between Gordon and John, Parker struggling to maintain two trays smothered in goods as he sat down opposite. Brains ducked out of the bathroom a moment later and joined them.

"So," Penelope announced, reaching for her cup of tea. She suspected it would the first of many of the night. "Let's begin."

There was no beating about the bush. John considered Brains one of his closest friends, but he couldn't afford to gauge the other man's reactions throughout the story. Gordon was steadily curling into his chair like a wounded animal and Virgil was staring into his coffee gloomily. At the end of the tale, silence had fallen across their group in a cold swathe, soul-consuming and greedy in its hunger.

Gordon hated silence, but for the first time in his life, he was not the one to break it.

"I swear on my life," Brains announced, his voice steady and firm, "I had nothing to do with this. I would never work with the Hood. I couldn't do that to Jeff's memory and…" His resolve wavered somewhat with his next few words, "I couldn't do that to my family."

Gordon kicked Virgil's ankle. It was the most normal action he'd taken all evening. Except it seemed Virgil didn't need the prompt.

"We know."

At the counter, the waiter had fallen into a slumber across the cash machine, and every so often it bleeped in anger at the treatment. EOS flipped across the systems to turn it off and then returned to her portable drive in time to draw John's hastily made plans into holograms.

Penelope took another sip of tea. There was a tinge of darkness beneath her eyes where her concealer had become smudged that spoke of sleep deprivation. Beneath the table, she'd pressed her knee against Gordon's and the singular point of contact brought more comfort than she'd expected. "Well," she murmured, tapping her thumb against the rim of her cup, "this is rather distressing. I suppose you have a plan, John?"

"You could say that."

Gordon made a soft squeak of amusement that soon scattered into full-blown laughter. "You knew from the beginning, didn't you?"

"No." John motioned to EOS to switch slides. "But there were so many things that didn't add up."

"It's literally two in the morning – I can't think properly. Can someone fill me in?" Virgil stole a scrap of pastry from Parker's plate and munched on the mauled treat with the hunger of a starved shark. "Seriously."

"I couldn't remember seeing Kayo once at the hospital," Gordon elaborated. "I thought it was suspicious, but I figured she was after the Chaos Crew still."

"Technically that's true." John finally took in Brains' pale face and the tiny tremors plaguing his usually steady hands. The entire ordeal was taking more out of their friend than any of them realised. "But once Alan told us everything, I updated her, and she has quite a different goal now."

It took another good hour or two before John had finished outlining his plan, deciding on the final details on the spot, and answering all the questions that were promptly thrown at him. Virgil, ever the family peacekeeper and a secret huge softie at heart, had taken it upon himself to try and provide some comfort to the shaken scientist at his side.

"I believe it's time for some rest." Penelope rose to her feet and held out an arm. "Parker, if you would accompany me?"

Gordon had stumbled from the realm of exhaustion to pure numbness, so the sudden hand on his shoulder only resulted in him relaxing into the grip. Brains stumbled at the shock of extra weight landing against his side and Virgil joined them following the pleading look he was treated to.

"Having fun there?" He slunk an arm around Gordon's shoulders and tugged his brother away from the baffled scientist. Gordon slumped further against him, mumbling something sleepy into his shirt. Virgil tapped him on the forehead. "Hey, look alive."

"I'm not," was Gordon's only response.

Brains couldn't hold onto his words any longer. "Tomorrow," he burst out, frantic thoughts tumbling into being in a rush, "are you sure? This is my mistake, I don't want Gordon to get hurt because…"

Gordon roused himself enough from his dazed state to flap a hand in his friend's face. "Nah," he slurred, yawning widely half-way through his sentence. "You're family. S'cool. You'd do the same for me etc etc."

Brains blinked suspiciously bright eyes and lifted his glasses from his face. "Yes," he agreed softly, "I would."

-

With Scott officially out of the woods, this was the first night that Virgil was going to spending in a hotel room since the entire nightmare had begun. He both dreaded and welcomed sleep – he was exhausted both physically and mentally, but his subconscious had always had a knack for twisting and turning his thoughts into something cruel and wicked in intention. Still, he had something else to focus on rather than his thoughts for a while – Penelope had persuaded the hospital staff to let Gordon stay with them, and given he'd been set to be checked out the following day anyway, it had been approved. Now Virgil was sharing a room with his brother whilst John claimed the one next door, pointing out that he was likely to be up most of the night planning with EOS anyway.

Gordon had collapsed face-first onto the bed nearest the door and hadn't moved since. The only sign that he was still awake was the twitching of his feet and the uneven breathing that suggested he was upset. Virgil knew his brother well enough to give him space to collect his thoughts for a few minutes, and by the time he'd emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered and curled up in sweatpants, Gordon was ready to talk.

Only talk, however. He wasn't moving any time soon.

"Gordon," Virgil called across, tucking his backpack into the space between the wardrobe and the desk, and resting a glass of water on the windowsill above his bed. Moonlight streamed through the open blinds and he wasn't in any hurry to replace the natural light source with the bedside lamps. "You've got to take your shoes off at least."

There was a suspicious groan into the pillow.

Virgil peered across at him. "I'm serious."

A faltering sigh. Then: "Please."

"You're a disaster."

Gordon let out a small huff of laughter at that. "Comes with being a Tracy."

"Yeah," Virgil agreed, settling down on the end of the bed next to his brother. "What do you think about tomorrow?"

Gordon was silent as Virgil tugged off one shoe and then the other. "What do I think about giving myself up to the GDF because we can't prove Brains is innocent without revealing EOS's existence because of course a goddam AI is the only thing that could have picked up on that bug the Mechanic left in our system from the last time he hacked in and is Scott right? Because I'll take it, but jeez Virg, I don't want him to be right…"

Virgil gave a soft noise of agreement. "Kayo's going with you. John will be right outside the door. Scott's wary of anything military since his Air Force days, you know that."

"Is he right, though?" Gordon rolled onto his back and stared up at Virgil. His pupils were blown wide with a mixture of light-weight painkillers, exhaustion and general emotional overload. "I'm not saying that I don't want to do it, Virg, you get that right? I'm not…I promise, I'll do it, I just want to know."

Virgil wasn't entirely sure that Gordon even knew what he was saying anymore but humoured him all the same. "Hey." He caught one flailing hand and tugged Gordon's wrist back to the bed. "You're overthinking this. I get it, okay?"

Gordon took a breath. "Okay."

Virgil smiled. "Good." He stood up to avoid the foot his brother tried to stick in his face and threw a spare t-shirt and obnoxiously bright PJ-bottoms plastered in sharks onto the bed. "Put those on."

Gordon perked up. "Are these mine from home?"

"Maybe. I might have asked John to pick them up. Possibly."

"Virgil, you're the best."

Virgil laughed. "And don't you forget it."

By the time he'd returned from checking on John, Gordon was curled up into a tight ball underneath his duvet, gripping onto the edge of his pillow with a tightly knit fist. It was yet another sign of how on edge they all were – Gordon usually took up the entire expanse of bed offered to him, sprawling across the mattress and getting hopelessly snared in his sheets. Virgil quietly headed across to his own bed and tried to keep as silent as possible when a voice piped up and a pair of gleaming hazel eyes shone out of the darkness.

"It all starts tomorrow, huh?"

"Hmm."

"John all good?"

"Yeah, he's fine." Virgil picked out the patterns on the carpet that the moonlight threw across in a hazy field of shadows. It was strangely relaxing – the Tracy style of counting sheep. "You?"

"No." Gordon flung an arm across the mattress and stuck one foot over the edge. Virgil fought to hide his grin. "I will be."

"Good."

There was another snigger.

Virgil rolled his eyes. "God, what is it now? I thought you were so tired you'd fall asleep immediately."

Gordon gave a sleepy, somewhat hysterical giggle. "It's the beginning of the end, like some movie or something. Hey, if we were in a TV show do you think it would be popular?"

"What the hell?"

"No, hear me out. Like The Adventures of International Rescue."

"No."

"Or maybe Thunderbirds Are Go."

"Stop."

"Maybe even just Thunderbirds."

"There is a full glass of water next to my bed. In a minute, it'll be upended on your face."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

Blissful silence. Virgil closed his eyes and relaxed into the mattress. Sleep…

"Virgil?"

"What?"

Gordon seemed taken aback. "Nothing." He continued in a smaller voice, "just…goodnight."

Crap. Now Virgil felt bad. He felt around the side of his bed until he found the Celery Crunch Bar he'd hidden in his pocket earlier. The crinkle of the wrapper caught his fingertips and he tossed it easily onto his brother's pillow.

Gordon's sharp intake of breath was evidence that the snack had been identified. "Did you buy me this?"

"No, I stole it."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Virgil closed his eyes to properly try and sleep this time, but there was one final thought that kept nagging him, like a particularly stubborn idea for the piano or painting. "It'll be okay tomorrow."

For a moment, he wondered if his brother had fallen asleep. Then:

"I know."

"Okay. Good. I promise."

A wrapper rustled in the night. "Thanks."


	11. Chapter Eleven

Scott awoke to heavy panting and a hot tongue swiping across his cheek. There was something soft pressed to his chin and a steady thumping against the mattress. He peeled his eyes open and came face to face with one cheerful looking pug.

"Oh." He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Sherbet. What are you…?" He scrambled further up in his bed and raised his voice into a shout. "Alan! There is a dog on my bed!"

Alan came crashing through the door and collapsed in a heap against the chair by the window. He was panting heavily, shirt half undone and his shorts on backwards. One trainer was missing entirely, and his hair was sporting a similar style to that of someone who had sat directly in the path of Two's VTOLs. "What's wrong?" He gasped.

Scott pointed out the blindingly obvious. "There is a dog on my bed."

Alan blinked. "Oh yeah."

"Sherbet is on my bed."

"I know."

Scott gestured wildly at the fluffy animal which was now proceeding to chew on the end of his sock. He was pretty sure this was breaking every health and safety rule in the book, but given this was Penelope's pet, he wasn't questioning how this had happened. What he was questioning was why.

"Dog," he repeated helplessly.

Alan looked altogether too gleeful about this fact. "Do you want me to move him?" He finally asked, practically tripping over himself with bubbling laughter. Sherbet sat back, tail thumping against the bed. His nose quivered as he took in the antibacterial, unnatural smells of the hospital. He took a particular disliking to Scott's IV line (which Scott had attempted to remove twice already and had been suitably chastised about) and when he ducked into a low pounce, Alan finally decided that perhaps it was time to remove him and gathered the dog up into his arms. Sherbet wriggled, paws scrabbling to free himself, but Alan merely tightened his grip.

"Better?"

Scott stared at him. "Why is Sherbet in here?"

"Oh, Penny asked me to look after him for a while." Alan adjusted Sherbet's weight in his arms, cradling the dog carefully against his chest. The pug gave a disgruntled whine as he was jostled, and hooked his claws into the fabric, draping his front legs over Alan's shoulder and nestling a damp nose against the teen's neck. Alan yelped at the sudden cold and ran a hand down Sherbet's spine by way of apology.

Scott watched these goings-on with a soft smile. Before their move to the island, when they had lived in the family home back in the States, they'd had a dog – a large lolloping chocolate Labrador that used to steal from Virgil's plate and had a particular fondness for Gordon and Scott himself. The lab had slept on the end of Scott's bed and would accompany him on runs, whilst Gordon would plunge into local rivers and lakes in the summer, the dog splashing about in his wake. Alan, of course, could not properly remember this beyond a few hazy memories, and if International Rescue hadn't called for such an unpredictable lifestyle, then Scott would adopt another dog for his youngest brother to call his own. Still, for the foreseeable future Alan would have to make do with puppysitting for Penelope whenever possible.

"Penelope's here?" Scott shifted upright, tucked a pillow behind his back and stretched until his arms and legs no longer felt like jello. "What time is it?"

Alan made a crooning noise as Sherbet licked his chin. "Huh?" He tapped at his watch – a simple model which only told the time – not one of the complex, modified IR line – and held it out to show his brother. "Around seven in the morning."

"Have you had breakfast? Also, did you sleep here last night?"

Alan buried his face in Sherbet's fur. His voice came out muffled and sort of tight with emotion. "Maybe. John asked me to come back to the hotel with him, but I didn't want to…"

"I'm on the mend now."

"I know. I just didn't want to leave." Sherbet's tail whacked against Alan's chest. "Do you want me to leave?"

"That's a dumb question."

Alan still had his face pressed to Sherbet's fluffy side. The dog was practically rumbling with happiness, tail whipping from side-to-side. "Okay. So, the others have a plan. They talked to Brains. So did Penelope, 'cos, you know, knowing when people are lying is part of her job."

"And?"

"We were right to trust Brains."

Scott curled his hands into fists beneath the blanket because he for one had not been quite so quick to trust their friend. Part of it was simply due to his nature, and the rest of it was down to a surprisingly dark military past that he was not willing to dredge up and think about before a couple of drinks, which, at this time of the morning, was not going to happen, especially not in front of his kid brother.

"Breakfast?"

Alan blinked. "Here?"

"Yep." Scott patted the mattress. "I'll look after Sherbet for a minute, you go and find some food."

"Why?" Alan had a mischievous glow to his face. "Hospital rations not good enough for you?"

"Go."

The sound of laughter followed Alan out of the door. Scott looked to Sherbet, who promptly turned around and flopped down against the rails, tail resting across his face like a fluffy sleeping-mask. Scott ignored him, reaching for the communicator he'd pickpocketed from Alan and swiping down until he reached Virgil's contact.

"Virgil."

Virgil's hologram figure looked horrified. "You're awake?"

This was somewhat ironic given he also looked as though he'd just rolled out of bed. In fact, even the crumpled sheets were visible in the background, and his dark hair was still damp with shower-water. Scott cut to the chase. "And out of the loop apparently. Alan says you have a plan. I want in."

"You're not Field Commander right now."

Scott took a deep breath and counted to ten. "Don't mess me around. I might be stuck in hospital, but I'm still me. Penelope's here, which means she's working with John and I know how their minds work. Gordon's heading to the GDF, isn't he?"

Virgil closed his eyes. "Maybe," he admitted. "Scott, we would have told you, I promise, but we just didn't have the time. You're still in recovery, and we're running on a tight schedule as it is."

"Give me an outline."

"Gordon's buying us time. John is finding a way to prove the information the Hood got from our systems dates back to the Mechanic without revealing that EOS exists, because right now the only way to get that evidence is through EOS. By the time the GDF are finished with Gordon, we should have got Brains off the grid. We'll need to get Alan to go too, even if they do need your approval to ask him questions."

"Okay."

Virgil was taken aback. "Okay?"

"Yes, okay. It's a good plan and we don't have any other options."

"Of course it's a good plan, it's John's."

Scott allowed himself a wry grin. "What do you need me to do?"

"Sit tight. Keep Alan occupied. You know how he is – the second he finds out what's going on he'll want in on the action and he's…"

"Way too much like me for his own good?"

Virgil visibly forced back a laugh. "You said it, not me."

"Alright." Scott hated not being in the thick of things, but he wasn't a complete idiot. Besides, he trusted John's judgement. "Let me know when you need to get Alan out of here."

"Why?"

"Because you'll need a distraction, otherwise the hospital bots will see him leave."

"Do I want to know your definition of distraction?"

Scott gave the projector an amused look. "Gordon's not the original prankster of the family, you should remember that."

-

Kayo was either a master of the shadows, or the queen of dramatic entrances, and there was no in between. Virgil was making the most of the unlimited breakfast buffet available when he spotted his adopted sister stroll into the table-clustered ballroom, dressed head-to-toe in a biker-suit, leather glinting with the crystals decorating her collarbone and shoulders. Her cat-eyeliner paired with silver-rimmed stilettos drew the entirety of the room's attention to her. Virgil dropped the spoon back into the bowl of natural yoghurt, where it promptly overbalanced and landed in the tub of all-sorts fruit. An elderly woman full-on hissed at him in response and Virgil awkwardly smiled at her before edging away.

"Kayo," he muttered, looping his arm through hers and pulling her over to a nearby table. "What are you doing?"

"Drawing attention to myself so John can fill in Brains on the plan without unwanted flies on the wall." Kayo waved a hand in what looked like an overly dramatic gesture, but Virgil caught where she was indirectly pointing and noted his brother in deep conversation with a certain bespectacled scientist.

"Oh," he hummed. "Fair enough. But did you have to do it looking like a Las Vegas showgirl?"

"Please," Kayo replied, eyes narrowing in both insult and humour. "I'm not in a miniskirt. Besides, I pull this off, don't you think?"

"I think you're overcompensating for something."

She growled. Virgil stared back. "Oh fine, maybe." She tipped a previously unnoticed bag out onto the table and Virgil dragged his bowl out of the firing zone before his yoghurt and cereal could be joined by a modified lipstick. Kayo rifled through the collection of objects, her head tilted slightly to the side in order to listen in to John's and Brains's conversation. A glint of light caught on her earpiece, the only sign that she was using additional tech rather than her own natural skills. Virgil took a bite of his cereal and observed his sister. Kayo was holding herself with the usual tension and cautiousness of a field agent, but there was something else.

"Where have you been?" Virgil asked her casually.

Kayo's hands froze for a moment. "Working on tracking down anything that can help us with the entire saving Brains from the GDF situation." She stole a strawberry from his bowl and grinned. "You know, the usual, everyday sort of stuff."

"Right." Virgil hesitated, but continued. "And does tracking down help down from afar usually involve you getting hurt?"

Kayo didn't react. She plucked a tiny, inconspicuous looking pen out of the pile and flicked her eyes up to meet his searching stare. "The GDF have corned off the whole zone around the islands. My original plan was to wipe the drives on the Chaos Cruiser free of anything that could link them to IR." She rolled her shoulder and winced. "It didn't go so well."

"What happened?"

"The GDF have pulled in the serious guys to guard it. I'm talking the super ex-military." She flipped the cap off the pen. "And I don't mean Scott military either. These are essentially shadow agents." She sighed. "They almost make me seem like a kitten." She narrowed her eyes and pointed the pen at him. "Almost."

Virgil caught sight of a wild Gordon stumbling through the doors. He was clearly still half asleep, but he was in clean clothes and looked more put together than any of them had the night before.

"If you're overcompensating for an injury then it's working," he murmured to his sister. "No-one would know."

Kayo waved to Gordon and returned her attention to the table. "Quit worrying, I'm fine. It was just a scratch. They've got some pretty cool gear actually."

Virgil refrained from pointing out the silver bands decorating her wrists – the electro-stuns may look like ordinary bracelets, but they were arguably some of the best tech out there – if that wasn't cool gear then he didn't know what was. Frankly, he didn't want to think about it. He nodded to the pen Kayo held tightly. "Is that for getting Brains off the grid?"

"What's getting Brains off the grid?" Gordon asked, flopping down into the chair between them. He tore off the end of his croissant and stuffed it into his mouth, spraying his t-shirt in crumbs as he continued speaking. "Bus tickets?" He cracked a grin.

Kayo looked distinctly unimpressed. "You spoke to John, didn't you?"

"Maybe." Gordon gestured towards Virgil's half-empty bowl. "You gonna finish that?" Virgil slid the bowl across the table to him. "Thanks."

Brains appeared to have vanished in the short time Virgil had taken his eye off him, but John meandered across the floor, engrossed in the holograms bathing his wrists. His eyes were a bright, unnatural green, proof that he was wearing his contacts. Virgil kicked out a chair for him before he could collide with the table.

"Good morning to you too," Gordon muttered as his brother remained mute.

John gestured towards the buffet table. "There's waffles." It was the perfect distraction.

"What?" Gordon leapt to his feet. "Where? When? Why didn't I know about this?" He seized Kayo's arm. "Come with me. Chocolate is needed. Also, Virg, I'm blaming you for not telling me."

"Great plan," Kayo agreed with him as she was dragged towards the top table. "Blame everything on Virgil."

Virgil watched them go with a heavy sense of weariness. He slumped against the table, observing the reflections of other guests in the breakfast hall in the metal surface of his abandoned spoon. There were various families, couples and obvious business executives all bundled into the same peach-painted room, and on any other day he imagined he'd find this one place drawing such a different crowd together fascinating. But this was not just any other day, and it seemed obvious right down to every last detail.

John's hand drifted into his vision. A finger prodded his forehead. Virgil glanced up at him and raised a querying brow.

"You're worrying," John commented without looking away from his holograms. "Your face is doing that thing again."

"My face does not do a thing."

John gave a little nod as if to agree with him. The smug expression he was sporting was proof otherwise. Virgil glared at him, but it was too much effort. Besides, Gordon's laugh was audible over the hum of conversation as Kayo attempted to smack him with a waffle, and it was all too much of a reminder that he was about to head straight into the heart of the GDF.

"He'll be fine."

"I know."

"You haven't eaten much. You never do when you're stressing."

Right. John and his creepy observational skills. Virgil flicked a torn piece of napkin at his brother. John merely tossed it back; there was no fun when he didn't rise to a challenge. Anyway, John couldn't talk – the dark circles beneath his eyes were about to issue a competition to a panda in some conservation-park in Asia and yes, John had always been pale – Space especially would do that to a guy – but c'mon, this was getting ridiculous. Virgil knew well enough not to mention it. If John was ever going to talk about something, then he had to be the one that raised it, not his confidant. And so, it was time for another approach:

"What's the likelihood of this working?" he muttered.

John's stare was slightly glazed; he was very obviously looking at the interface his contacts were providing him with rather than the real world. "Ninety-six percent," he replied in a distracted voice.

Virgil blinked in surprise. "That was precise." EOS's avatar winked a light at him. "Ah. Makes sense." There was a little pause in which he considered going to grab a second coffee, and John proceeded to curse whilst switching to his watch instead of his contacts. "Scott wants in."

"Of course he does." John finally gave Virgil his full attention. "He needs to focus on getting better. Brains's tech has got him out of the worst of it, but now he's got to go through the physical therapy like any other person."

"He doesn't like it."

John rolled his eyes. It was funny how they all behaved so much like Alan at times. "He's an idiot."

"I know. I told him about Alan and Brains going off grid."

"How'd he take it?"

"Surprisingly well. He wants to help however he can."

John hmmed. EOS span her avatar lazily. "He can help by letting me handle this." He shifted his chair back and stretched, clearly fighting back a yawn at the same time. Virgil had no problem imagining that his brother had been up working for hours after the rest of them had fallen asleep. He looped his arm around the back of his chair to twist and catch sight of Gordon fleeing from the hot breakfast bar with Kayo at his heels. It was sobering to think this was probably the last fun either of them was going to have for a while – even John had no idea how long it would take to find evidence for Brains without EOS's input.

Still. "Ready to go?"

John had a glint in his eye that reminded Virgil of Kayo when she was close to catching a bad guy she'd been trailing for months. "Absolutely."

-

The sun hadn't yet risen over the mountains, but the air was already warm, the usual brisk chill that Gordon associated with mornings still absent. Through the tinted glass of the GDF car, the world seemed tinted with a golden haze as though everything had been dipped into a vintage filter. Kayo was sat on the far side, unspeaking, her hands poised above her knees – she was always on edge where unknown forces were concerned and given their driver's identity was a complete secret, her current tension was not unexpected. Gordon had claimed the other window with a pitiful whinge of 'it's like a final drive to the gallows, c'mon Johnny, give a guy a break here,' and, miraculously, John had given in. There was a vague sense of guilt about him whenever he was reminded that it was his plan that involved his younger brother being thrown into the midst of a GDF interrogation.

"If I ask how much further, will you hit me?" Gordon asked cautiously.

John, squashed in the tiny space between his siblings – these cars were built for security, not comfort – made a low growl deep in his throat. His eyes – still that bright, unnatural green – narrowed with warning.

Gordon nodded. "Got it." He jammed his elbow back into the gap between the window and his headrest and leaned against the glass with a sigh. "Goodbye cruel world. I'll remember you in jail. Maybe."

"Oh, quit it," Kayo muttered from her side of the vehicle. The joking sister Gordon had stolen waffles from at breakfast had disappeared, buried deep beneath the necessity of her unofficial secret agent persona. He imagined she'd make a great female James Bond. Penelope would probably find the idea funny – he made a mental note to mention it to her.

"I'm just saying," he continued, if only to break the silence because goddamn he hated long, awkward pauses where no-one knew what to say. "Scott was all don't go to the GDF Gordon, and now John's like go to the GDF Gordon, and now what am I doing? Gordon is going to the GDF; that's what he's doing."

"John says stop talking about yourself in the third person, Gordon," John snapped back, not looking up from the phone he had produced from seemingly nowhere.

Gordon pressed a hand to the glass. "Touché," he said, and tried to smile. He could joke around all he liked, but it didn't hide the fact that he wasn't looking forward to this. Which, in reality, was the understatement of the century. Not looking forward to it? He genuinely would rather perform an underwater rescue in civilian clothes and with no Thunderbird.

Condensation was forming around his fingers. He watched the water droplets trickle down, racing each other across the glass. The outside world had faded to a background blur. There was a little ball of nerves in his chest, like butterflies, but choking. It was a different sort of fear to that he'd felt constantly on the island – more of a nervous apprehension. Something was bound to go wrong – it always did. Gordon had simply reached the point where he wasn't sure if he cared if it did anymore – he just wanted to go home and sleep for a century or so.

"Two minutes," Kayo reported. "You good to go?"

"I don't know," Gordon responded, trying to force humour into his voice. "Am I?" He rapped his knuckles against John's head. "Hello? All knowing being? Am I ready to go?"

John gripped Gordon's wrist and lowered it to the seat between them. "Are you?" He repeated softly, with more honesty in his gaze than Gordon knew how to handle. This was weird. John didn't give them the chance to back out – he made the plans and told them where to go because he knew their limits and they just did it.

"I'm…" He snatched his hand back. "Yep. Cool. All FAB. Let's get this done."

If John wanted to say anything more, he didn't get the chance because the engine cut out and the darkness of the tinted windows was replaced by a shroud of bright light. The GDF facility rose above them akin to an avenging angel – all pure white and blue, like the very epicentre of new technology.

"Not very subtle, are they?" Gordon whispered to John. His brother, International Rescue technology dotted about his person like a strange mix of astronaut and general tourist, gave a little shrug.

"Just tell the truth and don't piss them off." John's shoulders were hunched, his face shadowed with apprehension. "Kayo's got your back, remember."

"Yeah." Gordon shoved his hands into his pockets and climbed the steps to the first set of security clearance. "What could possibly go wrong?"

-

"This is ridiculous."

Virgil stared up at the ceiling. Every inch of his being was itching to be doing something productive, but until Penelope and Parker sent him an alert, he was stuck here. Still, he wasn't the only one on edge - Brains was sat next to him, tapping. Every now and then the light would catch his glasses and throw patterns across the tiles.

"Seriously."

"Hmm," Brains spoke up, and dug his elbow into Virgil's ribs. Virgil jolted upright, his shoes slamming into the floor with an obnoxious thud. Alan, sprawled over the end of Scott's bed, let out a loud laugh. He was upside down and Virgil, as ever, questioned his brother's life choices.

Scott whirled around. "Virgil."

Virgil lifted a hand and waved it at him. "Present sir."

Alan gave another hyena laugh. "Ooh, damn. You're in for it now."

Scott's voice rose in volume. Virgil winced. The hospital staff were going to be filing noise complaints at this rate. "You're telling me that I just have to sit here, while Gordon is off in the GDF's clutches and Alan and Brains are on some random bus in the middle of nowhere?"

"It's not the middle of nowhere actually," Alan pointed out, "it's England and then Scotland."

Scott flung out his hands in frustration. "That's the same thing."

"Huh." Alan snapped off the end of his granola bar and tossed it into his mouth. "I reckon Lady P and Parker would disagree with you there." He offered the second half of the bar to Brains. "Want some?"

Brains shook his head. "N-no." He stole another glance at Scott who had his arms on his hips and looked about two seconds away from murdering someone – this would have been a lot more effective had he not been leaning heavily on crutches and was stuck in hospital scrubs. "I'm good." He swallowed nervously. "Thanks."

Alan shrugged. "Your loss." He reached behind him and manoeuvred Sherbet from where the dog had been attempting to wrangle the socks off his feet up to the cushion settled under his chin. "Stay."

"Scott," Virgil finally spoke up. "You said you were fine with taking a backseat on this one."

"No, I said I was fine with not being in the heart of the action. I said I wanted to help. I said I was going to sort the distraction. Now you're saying I can't even do that?"

"No, because you're on crutches and your vitals are still nowhere near a healthy level."

"That's not…"

"No. You refuse to accept when you've reached your limit and it's always been a problem with you. Not this time. Every single part of this has to go perfectly, you know that."

Scott had been about to argue back, but the distant sound of an explosion cut him off. Vibrations rattled through the room, hospital equipment clinking together. Sherbet let out a low whine. Brains' glass of water fell off the table and shattered.

"Uh," Alan piped up in a very small voice. "Did anyone else feel that?"

Scott whirled around to face Virgil with a surprising degree of sprightliness for a guy clinging to a pair of crutches and sporting in hospital clothes. "This is what happens when you agree to let Parker sort the distraction," he exclaimed, jabbing a finger towards the door. "He blows things up! He's our friend, sure, but he's an ex-criminal, Virgil!"

"Penelope's with him."

"Penelope blew up the front door of her own apartment she was sharing with John back in college because she forgot her key."

That was a fair point. Virgil snuck a glance at his watch and found it still depressingly void of any alerts that his part of the plan was go. "To be fair, she's had a few years to grow up since then."

Scott let out an interesting mix of a growl and a hiss. Wavering on his feet, he dropped back onto the bed with an exaggerated groan. Alan cautiously tapped at his shoulder until his brother twisted to look at him. "What?"

"Jeez, nothing." Alan peered closer at him. "Are you okay?"

"Someone is leaving me in a hospital."

Virgil stared at him. "Scott, quit whining."

"I'm not whining."

"You are definitely whining," Alan chimed in cheerfully. He tilted his head to the side and frowned. "Hey, should we be leaving?"

"Probably," Virgil muttered darkly, and flicked his watch screen. It remained insolently dark, as though taunting him. Then, just as he was about to give it all up and start sneaking Brains and Alan to the airport himself, hospital cameras and street surveillance be damned, it finally lit up with a message. "Penelope, you genius." He beckoned Alan over. "Time to go."

Scott, buried under a heap of pillows, mumbled something uncomplimentary, but the idea of letting his youngest brother disappear from society for the next few days without a goodbye apparently drew him out. Virgil let them have their hushed conversation whilst he checked in with Brains – for someone who had never liked travelling far from home, the entire idea of hiding from government agents was not on his bucket list, and he'd been jumpy all morning.

"You gonna be okay?" Virgil queried, passing him one of the duffle-bags.

Brains shifted his glasses higher and tried to look as confident as possible. It wasn't working. "Was the explosion necessary?"

"Definitely." Virgil hid his watch-face, but not before Alan had caught a glimpse of it.

"Wow, it totally wasn't an accident at all." There was a snort of laughter. "Parker, you never fail to amaze me."

There was a quiet whimper from Brains's side of the room. "This is going to be a disaster."

"Don't be such a downer." Alan bounced across to join him, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and everything he really shouldn't be – who the hell got excited about bus rides in the middle of nowhere with no internet allowed? Alan, that's who – while Brains continued to look as miserable as he was humanly capable. "It'll be fun."

"I'm g-going to die."

"Fun," Alan repeated vehemently.

"Death," Brains pointed out again.

Alan sighed dramatically and rose onto his toes to loop an arm around the scientist's shoulders. "See, that's the attitude Brains. What a mood. Truly relatable."

-

When John had limped into his hotel room the previous night, his body had been physically exhausted, but his mind would not shut up. After laying flat on his bed for a solid half-an-hour – or at least he thought it was around that long; enough time for Virgil and Gordon's voices to fall silent through the paired doors anyhow – and then flipping onto his front and finding he had equally as pitiful luck in the sleep department, he gave up, and headed over to the window. The city had stretched out in front of him and he'd let EOS name as many facts as she could recall without having to check the database until the blinking lights of buildings had scorched themselves into his retinas.

"EOS, how d'you feel about getting a head-start on some work?" His words were slightly slurred – he'd been awake for well over twenty-four hours now; no-one tell Virgil about that little nugget of information – but he was sure she understood the general gist of it.

EOS gave a tinny sigh – proof that she understood every word - but the soft blue of her lights suggested that she was in favour of the idea. It was rare for John to work off a laptop these days, especially given the more high-tech equipment IR had treated him to, but there was something strangely comforting about the familiarity of the metal screen and clicking of the keypad beneath his fingers. It reminded him of his college days – in both the US and the UK.

The next few hours flew by – he organised GDF transfers and meetings for Gordon, booked coach tickets across country in the UK under different identities for Brains and Alan – and then proceeded to set up those false identities complete with histories as far back as place of birth and parental records – wiped all traces of Alan's passport from the databanks in case anyone checked in and played a little bit of switcheroo with the accounts just to double-check that they won't be tracked. It should be enough to keep them out of the GDF's sight for the next few days, at least. He made a start on the International Rescue side of things and EOS made a little sound of protest which transformed into full-on nagging for him to eat something.

John paused after her fifth complaint in under two minutes. His back clicked as he stretched and he hooked one foot around the edge of his bed to keep himself from tipping off the mattress as he searched the drawer of the bed-side table; there was a room-service menu around here somewhere, he's sure of it. He finally uncovered it under a pile of tourism leaflets and a misplaced hand-towel and read his order aloud whilst EOS sent a request downstairs – he'd never been more grateful for Penelope's insistence that they always stayed in twenty-four-hour hotels.

With a basket of French fries dusted in paprika and salt and a side salad to try and make himself feel a little better about his life choices, John took a long gulp of the coffee he'd ordered alongside it and blinked the blurriness away from the corners of his vision. The screen was slightly hazy in front of him and he combatted another yawn with a fistful of fries – there were no brothers or aristocratic friends with their safe-cracking sidekicks around to judge him.

"Where were we?" He wondered aloud and tapped EOS's spare drive, settled on the edge of the bed. "EOS?"

"We weren't," EOS announced pointedly, "sleeping. Like you should be."

Honestly, John should have expected this. He'd programmed her, and he may not be the best at socialising with other people, but he'd always been more open with his family and that slightly overprotective streak that he forced himself to bury most of the time had been inherited in all its blazing glory by the AI in front of him. He lifted a forkful of salad. "I'm being good, see? I'm eating something."

EOS said nothing, but John could just feel her judging him. He shook the fork and a piece of lettuce landed on her camera with a sad flop. "Thank you, John," she said with as much exasperation as she could muster.

John tried not to laugh. "That wasn't intentional, I swear."

"Oh, I believe you."

"No, you don't."

EOS giggled. "No, I don't."

He worked through the backlog of base codes for IR so he had less to search through for the next few days, and flicked tabs back to the planning for Alan and Brains' grand escape. Penelope and Parker were set to be in charge of getting the two out of the city undetected, with Virgil taking control of the flight down to the UK – from then on, it was all on John from afar and any trace of common sense that Brains and Alan could gather between them – one of them could classify as a mad scientist and the other was a stressed-out teenager repressing his emotions from the past week, so John didn't hold out much hope. Still, he'd figured everything out right down to the tiny detail – all the two had to do was avoid talking to any officials and they'd be all set to come home in three days' time.

With the first glimmers of dawn, he finished up with the final correspondence with his team at Tracy Industries – given Scott as the official head was still in hospital and there'd been little to no reports on the rest of them, the investors were getting nervous. John had the patience for business that his older brother had never had – the only reason Scott had taken up the role was due to his location of actually being on the planet – fuel costs and hotel fees were all such a big palaver when your usual residence was a satellite.

Breakfast was a blur. He'd heard a thud and then a muffled curse that alerted him to the fact that Virgil was up and around – and falling out of bed from the sounds of things – so a shower later he headed down to the breakfast hall. It was strange wearing his IR contacts after a couple of days without them, and he kept trying to blink away the interface, much to EOS's amusement. The car-ride to the GDF facility come around far too quickly, and despite all the preparation he'd done for this, he couldn't shake the dark thoughts that he'd made the wrong choice and screwed everything up spectacularly. The fact that Gordon was so obviously apprehensive was not helping.

"Meet you inside," Kayo said quietly, her usual IR jumpsuit back in place after her morning's mission and following distraction – which John appreciated, even if she was still grumbling about it an hour later. Her GDF clearance meant the scanners merely flashed a simple green as she strolled through, throwing a quick salute to the nearest guard along with a smirk.

Gordon watched her go with a mournful look. "Just you and me." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Great."

John didn't call him out on the sarcasm. Gordon had always been the shortest of his brothers – minus Alan, but the kid was still growing like a beanstalk, so he let it slide – but he seemed strangely vulnerable in a way he hadn't before what John was mentally referring to as the accident. The irony of this didn't escape him – Gordon had a track record of accidents and if they were to actually write them down then the list would be about as long as his arm.

Security didn't frisk them too much. John's practically glowing contacts spooked one of the workers, but news of their arrival had clearly been a top priority for they were quickly met by a sickly-sweet woman in heels so high that Gordon kept asking in whispers how John thought she could walk in them – he had no idea.

They paused outside a steel door with no window where the woman left them with instructions for Gordon only to enter.

"Well shit." Gordon kicked at the base of the door lightly. "Does this look like some haunted asylum thing to you or is that just me?" He laughed nervously. "I mean, really. It's like the opening of a Supernatural episode. If I go in there, I'm gonna get murdered by some possessed GDF agent and a haunted clown or…"

And that was how John knew Gordon was freaking the hell out – the rambling. "What have you been watching on TV?" he replied, mildly horrified.

"Shut up, Sherlock nerd."

"Sherlock is a masterpiece."

Gordon shrugged. "Maybe. Possibly." He sighed and relented. "Alright, fine."

They turned to stare at the door. Gordon's shoulders slumped. "I really have to go in there, don't I?" He asked, all traces of humour gone from his voice. It was more of a statement than a question, but there was an unspoken plea in there too and damn, John felt like the bad guy right around now. He swallowed past the rising nausea in his throat and awkwardly patted his brother's shoulder.

"Kayo's on the other side of the door," he promised.

Gordon treated him to a dubious look. "Promise?" John fumbled for words and Gordon batted his shoulder with the string of his hoodie, grinning – even if it was a little forced. "Relax, I'm only kidding. It'll be fine. I'm great at charming people."

"That's not…"

"Hey, if the agent's cute then I might even score a date out of this…"

"Gordon…"

"I mean, who wouldn't want a piece of this?"

"Anyone with sanity," John instinctively shot back.

Gordon snapped his mouth shut on his next comeback and hesitated, a surprisingly soft look in his eyes. "There you go," he said lightly. "That's better. Stop beating yourself up, Johnny, I agreed to this. You and I both know that if I didn't want to be here, then I wouldn't be. Although," he reflected, "want might be a strong word." He shook himself and straightened up. "Right. See you on the other side, Spock."

John hovered outside the door for a few minutes after it had swung shut behind his brother. Maybe he was trying to listen in despite already knowing the entire place was soundproofed, or perhaps there was that small, instinctive part of him that didn't want to leave his brother alone for a second time – he'd couldn't escape the memories of searching radar and scans again and again non-stop and coming up empty-handed – nightmares of drowned siblings and lost Thunderbirds because something's gone wrong, John, I can't find them…they're not…the storm's worse and I can't find them…

"John." EOS was taking a risk, speaking aloud in a facility that claimed she shouldn't exist. He tapped his watch where she was currently residing.

"I know." He sucked in a deep breath. "We have work to do."

It was a well-known fact that the majority of government-funded facilities' coffees were terrible, but this one wasn't too bad. John – who was admittedly running primarily off caffeine and sugar at this point – sat down at a corner table where his laptop screen was shielded by a large potted fern and concealed from any security cameras. His internet connection was looped into Thunderbird 5 and a few strings of code he'd set up earlier bounced the data back and forth until it was unidentifiable by any of their servers. In fact, he was making some pretty good progress combing through the IR files for any possible leads back to the Mechanic without EOS's help when a chair screeched out across from him and a slip of grey suit flashed across his line of sight.

"Can I help you?" John asked without looking up. If it had been Kayo, she'd have announced her presence, and Gordon would have flung himself down as close as possible like the human octopus he was.

"That depends," Colonel Casey drawled, and laid her hands down on the table, closing John's laptop so he was forced to meet her eye. "I think it's high time we had a conversation, John – about the illegal AI currently stowed away upon your satellite, hmm?"

John stared at her. "What?" He flailed for words. "I….err…what?"

"You call her EOS." Casey stated matter-of-factly.

Well, John thought to himself, shit.


	12. Chapter Twelve

A problem that John had always struggled with was getting his brain to shut up. At any given moment it was a guarantee that he'd have at least three different thoughts racing through his mind at a speed to rival Thunderbird One with her ramjets engaged. It was a problem, and sometimes John wished he could just have a button to press to send his head into a beautiful, quiet shutdown, but it was also a blessing because without his incessantly loud brain, he wouldn't be able to do his job. He was the thinker, the problem-solver, the one who took a single look at the data and the situation at hand and told his brothers where to go when, which route to take, what line of action would result in the least pain and suffering and overall casualties. So yes, it was a burden, but it was one he was willing to bear.

Which is why it was such a surprise when he searched for a response to the bombshell Colonel Casey had just dropped on him and came up empty handed. He imagined a blank error screen where his thoughts should be, and grimaced. Even EOS, usually the little prompter with a witty comeback at the ready whenever a caller got just that little bit too aggressive on the radio, was silent.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He surreptitiously slid his laptop closer to his chest, preparing to tip it into his bag and head for the nearest exit. There was a fire door to his right, and he was willing to bet that EOS could alter the alarm codes for it within a second if necessary. "AIs are illegal. I work for an organisation that relies on the World Council's support – I'd never make a move to jeopardise that position." Casey raised her brows at him, the same look of amused disappointment that John could recall from his childhood. Sometimes it was very easy to tell that she had been such close friends with his father. "I mean, bringing an Artificial Intelligence onto my ship? That could endanger the entirety of International Rescue. You'd have to be a complete fool to make a move like that."

"Indeed," Casey agreed, "which is why I'm wondering what you were thinking." She dropped the act, shoulders slumping with days of non-stop work. John wasn't the only one trying to keep people safe, and he knew it. Casey's connections with the Tracy family had been the only thing saving IR from trouble in the past, and he hated putting her in a position that forced her to choose between them and her job.

"How much do you know?"

She nodded to the security camera that John had noted when he'd first walked in. "Let's go for a walk. It's…quieter in the gardens, if you know what I mean."

John suspected he didn't have a choice – he lacked Scott's military experience, but he knew well enough when he was being given a command rather than a polite request. Draining the rest of his coffee, he tossed it to the bin and looped his bag – laptop freshly stowed away inside – around his shoulders, following the woman who he'd grown up calling aunt to the door. A silent alert cropped up from his contacts, informing him that Penelope and Parker had played their part and Virgil was now piloting a battered Cessna over to the UK. He didn't reply – any extra data could potentially become a hazard, and he was multi-tasking enough as it was.

The gardens were surprisingly peaceful. John wasn't sure what he'd expected, but softly flowing branches adorned with yellow blooms and a fountain gently bubbling at the centre, had not been it. A string of wind-charms hung from a wizened tree, singing in the breeze. It was warm, but not the baking heat of midday – the shade from the rising buildings around them saw to that. Casey settled down on a bench next to the fountain – the sound of the water should drown out any of their conversation that happened to be picked up through an open window. John, bag swinging from his hands – he missed his uniform, with all the separate things to fiddle with when he was trying to improvise and manage five hundred things at once – joined her.

"I know about the incident in Japan, with the train," Casey began. Her features were stern, but there was an underlying warmth to her gaze that came with many years of watching the Tracy boys grow up and mature into the people they were today. "And I know about Thunderbird Five."

"How?"

She frowned at him. "John, you know I can't tell you that."

"If you're keeping tabs on us, then I need to know." Seriously, he really needed to know. His entire plan could have just gone to hell if the GDF knew too much.

"Obviously we're keeping tabs on you – you're an international organisation with enough advanced technology to leave half the planet powerless if you suddenly decide the rescuing business is getting too dull. Really, what did you expect?"

"Privacy for starters."

"I said we were keeping an eye on International Rescue, not the Tracy family."

"I live on my Thunderbird."

She settled her hands in her lap. There was a slight flush of tension about her knuckles. John knew well enough not to point that detail out. "The GDF do not have probes on board any of your craft. We don't break the law."

"But you sometimes believe you're above it."

"With all due respect, so do you."

John stared at the fountain. It was a harsh jab, mostly because it was true. He'd never directly broken any international laws, but he definitely viewed them as guidelines rather than rules to live by. He found and manipulated the loopholes and then, if there weren't any, he made them. Casey had a point, but it was one that referred to him rather than IR, and they both knew it. This was personal – she was after something only John could know.

"You want EOS."

"No. I was friends with your father before the idea of International Rescue had even crossed his mind. Scott had just turned two and you were still a dream more than an actual reality. Believe it or not, I want to help you, which is why I'm also about to break about sixty confidentiality laws in twenty different countries."

Yes. It was official – Colonel Casey was a badass.

"We pulled the records from the Chaos Cruiser. I recognised the plans we found as Brains's work and when we traced it back, sure enough, it registered with an IR database. I was the one who gave the order to bring in Gordon, because I knew Scott was not an option and he would never give consent for Alan to be questioned – I didn't expect any of you to agree to it, yet your brother is currently sitting in one of our interrogation rooms. Then, about ten minutes ago, I got an alert claiming that there had been an accident in the street outside a certain hospital, wiping out all visual and audio feeds in a three-block radius and requiring many of the staff who would otherwise have been on patrol. Now there is a plane in the air with three recorded passengers heading to an airport in the UK which belongs to an old friend of your father's."

"Coincidence."

"John. I've watched you grow up. I know you, and I know your plays. This entire plot has your name all over it. You're protecting Brains and Alan, which means Alan knew about the files on the Chaos Cruiser, and Brains is innocent. Am I right?"

John buried his face in his hands. "Pretty spot on actually," he mumbled through his fingers. He didn't need to look up to picture the satisfied smirk on the woman's face. She loved being right almost more than he did.

"Now, given I know you have an AI in your ranks, and you're trying to buy time by offering us Gordon, I'm willing to bet that EOS is only proof you have that Brains is in the clear. How am I doing?"

"Take a wild guess."

"I'm offering you our resources."

John sat up, staring at her incredulously. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Like I said, I care about your family. I'm turning a blind eye to EOS, but if the rest of the GDF find out, or the World Council gets wind of it, I can't keep you or it safe, so you need to find proof without its help – hence the use of our resources. You can keep Brains and Alan off the radar for a couple of days, but any longer and someone will grow suspicious. Now, do we have an agreement?"

"She."

"Excuse me?"

"She." John lifted his head. "EOS is a she. Not an it."

Colonel Casey raised her eyes to the sky with the long-suffering sigh of someone who had known John for his entire life. It was that fond exasperation that could only be found in someone so close that they could be considered family.

John stuck out his hand. "It's a deal."

-

"If you could just tell me anything you can remember."

Silence. The steady clicking of a watch face, the tapping of shoes against a tiled floor, the thrum of a heartbeat in his ears, but nothing more.

"Anything at all. No matter how insignificant it may seem, it could be vital information."

Another long pause. Gordon rubbed at his temples, yawned leisurely and tried to maintain his apparent relaxed demeanour; he was exhausted, and it was fraying at the edges. He dug his fingers into his palms, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes against the glare of the lights for a moment. The woman facing him had little patience for this, and the indignant tapping of her pen against her Pad suggested as much. He could imagine the narrowed brown eyes and scraped back peppered hair, cold with an unseen rage. One thing was for certain – the agent was not the cute might-ask-out-on-a-date kind.

He was sat on a plastic chair that was designed for focus rather than comfort; the hard ridges were digging into his back, probing tender skin where fresh bruises were still forming. The table in front of him was stainless steel and polished to the highest degree – it was so clean that he could pick out every tiny detail of his reflection in the metal. Around him were white walls, white ceilings, white floor tiles – everything so perfectly pristine until it seemed cold and threatening. He longed for uneven blankets and colourful sofas, carpets speckled with glitter from projects from their childhood that still clung to the threads no matter how many times the hoover ran over them.

"Is there anything at all that you can recall? This is very important and could be crucial in our investigation…it could save lives."

"Really?" He gave a dark chuckle. "Because I thought saving people was my job."

For the first time, the woman's mask of indifference began to slip. The corners of her mouth twitched, a brow quivered, and a vein leapt across her temple with barely concealed rage. Agent Jodie was a GDF agent, highly trained and almost unmatched in her field – the perfect candidate for retrieving information from unruly victims – but everyone had their limits. It had been a very long day – her fiancé had left the lid of the bin up and the dogs had got into it, her car had broken down and now she was faced with a twenty-something man with a cocky grin and sense of self-assuredness about him that had her desperately wanting to plunge her fist right into his face. She took a deep breath and tried to remind herself that he had been through a terrible experience for the past week – plus he had saved the world a few times, so there was that going for him too.

"Mr Tracy," she began again with an inward sigh of pure frustration. "Please."

"Please, what? Please can you sign my cast?" Gordon perked up, making to drag his leg out from under the table. The chair legs gave an ear-splitting screech across the tiles and she winced. For the first time, she allowed her true feelings to slither past her stony exterior and onto her face in a dark cloud of anger.

"This has been a long and trying day for all of us."

"Oh, I agree."

"I'm glad we've reached an understanding."

"It was very trying – they've run out of coffee in the hospital café and my brother was furious."

Agent J pressed her forefinger and thumb to the brim of her nose and squeezed. A dull pain was settling in about her temples; a silent promise of an oncoming headache. They'd been at this for hours. She'd tried everything; manipulation, dredging up painful memories, carefully worded threats but he still refused to give her anything. As far as she was concerned, this had been a complete waste of six hours.

Gordon, for his part, was not enjoying the experience any more than she was. He may have seemed well at ease and overly confident in his mask of humour and general irritation, but he was exhausted and hurting – the painkillers had worn off around an hour before. He had reached the conclusion even before the session had begun that the GDF's interview was more of an interrogation than anything else, reinforced by the complete refusal to allow anyone else to sit in. Kayo, despite being IR's head of security, technically had enough clearance within the GDF to be there, but she was sat on Gordon's side of the table so that their elbows and knees brushed, a silent message of support and grounding, and if that didn't speak volumes to the GDF about where her true loyalties lay then Gordon didn't know what would.

He was skilled in – essentially - being an annoying son-of-a-bitch. This was something all of his family could attest to. Manipulating people, irritating them, playing at their emotions until their masks cracked and their true emotions were revealed – it was a game, and he was the unsung hero. There were two outcomes – one where the GDF received their information – and god knew that there was scarcely any of it – and he was forced to publicly relive on camera the memories that played on repeat in his nightmares or he could force Agent J to crack first, and be sent away scot-free. He knew which of those two options he preferred. He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the top, sending her a wild grin.

"So, Agent J, here's what I remember. It was a fantastic beach, but very poor customer service…"

"Enough!" She slammed her hands down on the table. Tremors skittered across the surface, rumbling about the tiles and up the walls. The mirror flickered – it was two-way glass then. There was something deadly in her gaze – like the vicious glare of a predator about to kill - and Gordon jolted back involuntarily. Kayo's hand flew to his shoulder, fingers curling about the loose fabric of his sweatshirt and digging in until he recognised his ragged breathing and tried to calm his heartrate before he started hyperventilating. God he was on edge. What the hell was going on with him?

"I think we're done here." Kayo rose to her full height, emerald eyes flashing with an unspoken threat as Agent J began to protest. "Did you mishear me? I said, we are done." She settled an arm around Gordon's shoulders to help him struggle to his feet. "We're leaving."

John was pacing the corridor outside. A spare EOS drive was clipped to his waist, looped around his belt in a crude fashion that would never be found on their IR uniforms. His hair was bedraggled where he'd been running his hands through it, shirt untucked, and he was significantly less put-together than usual, eyes blood-shot as he caught sight of them.

"You okay?" His hands hovered above Gordon's shoulders as though he were unsure what to do with them. It was such a John thing to do – waiting until the other person gave the go ahead – and Gordon stumbled forwards, colliding heavily with his brother. The pain-meds were completely out of his system by now and the aching in his bones was raw and soul-consuming, sapping the energy from him until all that remained was a desperate urge for sleep.

"Can we go home now?"

Kayo and John exchanged a silent look over his head.

"We've got to stay a little longer," Kayo said gently, her voice unnaturally soft. Gordon dropped his head to John's shoulder and buried his face in the fabric of the shirt. There was the distant, familiar scent of their washing powder from Tracy Island, and the traditional books that used proper paper, snatches of cinnamon too – everything that spoke and sung of home. He felt distantly like crying, but the scratching sensation of growing tears in his throat seemed detached. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and hid from the harsh lights of the corridor.

Kayo was still speaking. Her words seemed strange, almost foreign.

"Hey." John tapped at Gordon's head. "You still with us?"

Gordon blinked owlishly at him. "Uh."

"Uh isn't an answer, kiddo." John frowned, reaching out a hand to steady him. "You're swaying. When was the last time you ate?"

"Med ward, around five hours ago," Kayo answered for him. She had tugged her hair out of its usual ponytail and her IR uniform was slightly unzipped to reveal the soft fabric of her black t-shirt underneath and a flash of gold where her necklace was tucked behind it. "Painkillers have probably worn off by now." She padded closer, figure blocking out the bright lights of the LEDs lining the ceiling panels. The world plunged in a merciful darkness around Gordon. He had the strange feeling that he was floating, as though watching himself on TV – an entirely separate entity.

John snapped his fingers. Gordon stared at him. "Huh?"

"I said," John repeated himself, "that I think you're dissociating."

"Huh." Something was buzzing. It was the only thing that he could focus on and for all of his being, all that he wanted was to make it stop. "S'weird."

The buzzing stopped.

"Gordon."

"What?" he snapped, trying to blink the blurriness from his vision – unsuccessfully. Somehow, they had moved out of the corridor and into a darker room without him noticing. "Woah…"

"Woah, what?"

"I don't know."

John suddenly found himself with an armful of shaking younger brother. He took a couple of steps back to compensate for the extra weight, and gently lifted Gordon back to his feet. The aquanaut slumped heavily against his side and John resigned himself to the idea that Gordon wasn't going to be walking on his own two feet for the next few hours at least.

"I don't feel so good."

"Yeah." John sighed and tugged him closer. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry about that. If I had my way, then we'd have taken you home already."

"That was what…six hours? Did you find anything?" John tensed. It was oh-so-slightly, and Gordon probably wouldn't have noticed anything had he not been clinging onto his brother like a limpet. "John?"

"Colonel Casey knows everything. She's on our side," John hastened to add as Kayo's hands flew to her sash. She let them fall back to her sides, but her green gaze was unrelenting – she was not about to let this go without a proper explanation; one which he would give to her later, when he was certain his younger brother wasn't about to pass out on him. "And to answer your question, yes, I've got a lead. I'll need a little longer, probably twenty-four hours' worth, to narrow it down to actual evidence, but then Brains will be in the clear and the GDF won't have a reason to go after Alan." He pinched the brim of his nose, wincing slightly; a clear sign of a forming headache.

Gordon, still fading in and out of reality, dragged his gaze away from the swimming ceiling and onto his brother's face. "Are you okay?"

John coaxed a smile onto his face. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a headache."

"Is it?"

"…yes?"

Gordon peered at him suspiciously. "When was the last you slept?"

"Recently enough. Anyway, you should go and get some rest yourself."

"I'm fine."

Kayo didn't bother to hide her derisive snort. "You're slurring your words and you're literally swaying on the spot right now. Also, word choice. In conclusion, brother-o'-mine, you are not fine." She waved over her shoulder. "Med-room, now."

Gordon glanced down at his feet and oof, wow, okay, that was a mistake. He wrapped his hand around John's waist with a yelp as he found himself tilting sideways. The horizon was a wobbling line and the floor was indistinguishable from the ceiling. Not fun. God, this was like a bad trip.

"Hey." John's voice was loud in his ears. "Gordon." Fingers snapped in front of his face. He blinked, jolting backwards.

"Can I just stay with you?"

Did he sound like an actual five-year-old? Yes. Did he particularly care? No. Gordon had been repressing pretty much everything from the past few days and he was trying to ignore the fact that he knew the second he was left by himself, he'd start thinking about it, which was a no go. Kayo was awesome, but she didn't know everything. John…kinda did. Plus, Gordon trusted the GDF about as far as he could throw them, which in this moment of time was not very far at all.

John and Kayo exchanged another look. They were communicating silently, and it was creepy. Gordon wanted to laugh; he also wanted to throw up, so there were two things he wasn't doing.

"Alright." John usually took a lot more persuading – you could throw Scott the puppy-dog eyes and he'd be caving within a minute, but John rarely gave in. Gordon would have entertained the possibility that his brother wasn't dealing with everything as well as he was claiming to, but Kayo's arm was winding around his waist and he had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Problems and solutions and everything else were too much and damn, what wouldn't he give for some painkillers?

"You gonna be okay?" Kayo whispered. She had her head tilted to the side so she could glimpse his expression and her face was soft with concern. People sometimes called her a heartless bitch, but Gordon knew the truth – Kayo loved people just as fiercely as he did.

"Give me a couple of hours," he admitted, and then, with a mischievous grin, added: "And maybe a Xanax or two."

Kayo elbowed him in the ribs. Next to them, John was silent. This wasn't out of the ordinary – Gordon reckoned that if you looked up introvert in the dictionary then you'd find his brother's picture next to it – but god, there were so many things wrong right now that even the idea of adding something else into the mix made him want to break down and cry. No matter which way he turned, the prospect of going home seemed to travel further and further away. Even the idea of heading out on a rescue seemed like another life.

Still. All that remained between Gordon and his own bed in his own room with his own goldfish perched on the desk and glowering at the tropical fish on the other side of the room was a measly twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours was nothing. He'd slept longer than twenty-fours before – admittedly, he'd technically been in a coma at the time, but he felt like the point was still valid. It was just…twenty-four hours. He was so tired of it all. He'd gone from trying to keep himself, Alan and Scott alive into the heart of a full-gone heist, complete with the high stakes of a bad spy film, and he was still popping pills from the hospital every few hours. This was ridiculous. Alan shouldn't be hiding out on a bus in England with Brains of all people – that was ridiculous too.

Yeah. Gordon needed to stop thinking. He twisted the hem of his shirt around his fingers until the fabric caught on his nails, which, ow, okay, apparently he'd been biting again. That was a nasty habit he'd forced himself out of about six months ago. Nice to know that it was back. Damnit.

"Here." Kayo's arm disappeared from around his waist as she held a hidden door open for them. Gordon tried not to limp too badly, and John's small smile was proof that his brother had noticed and appreciated the effort. Hey, he was trying. Give a guy a break. He'd been in hospital not forty-eight hours previously – the wonders of modern medicine.

It was almost entirely dark in the room. The flood of light from the hallway abruptly cut out as Kayo pulled the door shut until the lock clicked. Despite the darkness, Gordon couldn't help but feel the first glimmers of safety he'd sensed in days, as though the rest of the world had been shut out and couldn't reach him. There was only himself and two of the people he trusted most in the world, and really, he'd still take all this - the work and effort and fear that everything could go sideways and half of them could end up in jail – over the constant panic and sickness of the island.

He blinked until his vision obliged and adjusted enough for him to make out the fine details. There was a desk stacked high with hologram projectors and crates on the far side of the box-room, a lone lamp trailing a broken cord perched on the very end. This was covered in a thin layer of dust, confirming what Gordon had already suspected – this room was not commonly used. He was standing in front of a desk covered with paper-files, a familiar laptop and an empty coffee cup. Scrawled notes in familiar curved handwriting slanted on post-it-notes plastered to the wall, and, next to them, an EOS drive was secured so that she could observe the room and its occupants.

"Hello Gordon," she greeted him brightly. "How was your interview?"

There was a strange note of honest concern that was odd coming from an AI. Gordon went to answer her but cut himself off with a yawn. Something soft smacked him in the face and he yelped, struggling to maintain his balance.

"Hey." He shot an accusing look at the culprit. "Give a guy some warning, would you?"

"No," Kayo repeated, tossing him another blanket that she was procuring from a cupboard that had previously gone unnoticed, leering out of the shadows with a flash of EOS's lights reflecting off its hinges. "Think fast."

John scuffed the floor doubtfully with one foot and glanced at him. "You sure you can sleep on this?"

"I slept on an island for days on end, I'll be fine." Gordon dumped the blankets down on the lino in an undignified heap and promptly flopped onto them like a beached whale, wallowing in the sea of fluff and faint smell of dampness until he was submerged in the covers. John was watching him with intense amusement. "What?"

"You're such an idiot."

"Thank you. I do try."

"There's a proper bed not five minutes' walk away."

Gordon wasn't opposed to emotional conversations complete with honesty – and often too many hugs if Virgil was involved – but he had a sneaking suspicion that if he took up John's unspoken offer of talking about everything, then he'd start crying and then they'd never get anything done. Instead he shoved an arm under his head and rolled onto his side, stretching out his leg to try and dull the ache and watching the pale light of the laptop screen illuminate the room, throwing delicate shadows across the ceiling and turning John's hair an even paler shade of blond. Kayo, meandering across the room, was bathed in shadows, the light catching her cheekbones and flashing off her necklace. She bent down, offering him a cereal-bar and a bottle of water to match.

"Sorry," she admitted before he could complain. "It was all I could find in the cupboard that's still in date." She poked at the water bottle. "This is fresh at least." She lowered her voice to a whisper, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Don't tell John I stole it from him."

"I heard that."

"Shh, you heard nothing."

Gordon propped himself on his elbow and tore open the packet with his teeth. The bar was packed with additives and probably fouled at least five sugar taxes, but he was so hungry he'd take anything. Wolfing down the second half, he prodded Kayo's shoulder where she was sat against the wall by his feet. She lifted her brows in query. "You got any painkillers?"

"Leg?"

"Headache too."

She nodded, searching in her pockets until she found a spare packet of his hospital prescription and held it out wordlessly. Gordon popped a couple and chased them down with water, trying not to think about the taste. In hindsight, saving some of the cereal bar may have been a good idea. He wriggled down under the jumble of blankets, then flipped over to try and stop himself from subconsciously fidgeting with the wrapper left on the floor. John's typing was soft, but loud when it was accompanied by an echo. EOS was a pale blue glow, as alien as she had ever seemed since the day Gordon had first learnt of her existence, and oh hello, now he was thinking about the ever-present possibility of death again and oh god, Scott.

"Hey." Kayo's voice snapped him back to the present. She was staring at him with furrowed brows, hair loose around her face for once. Clearly he wasn't the only one with a headache. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"Hmm." She grinned, shark-like. "I call BS."

"Kayo." John tilted his chair back to catch her eye. "Leave him alone."

She sighed dramatically, drawing her knees up to rest her arms on top. "But he looks like he's having some sort of waking nightmare."

"No, that's just his face," EOS whispered, and started giggling to herself. John pretended not to hear her.

"Let him sleep."

"But."

"Kayo."

Gordon tugged a blanket over his head and imagined the world had gone away for a little while. There was something terribly comforting about the darkness – no expectations or feelings or memories of family bleeding out of his hands or the fact that he'd just left without saying goodbye to Alan or Scott. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his lip, hard, begging sleep to come quickly. He wasn't responsible for either of them anymore. Scott was getting the medical help he needed, and Alan was…hidden. Safe from the GDF and their questions that probed too deep into memories that Gordon had perfected the art of repressing.

He took a deep breath and immediately broke out coughing. The blankets were too musty and dusty and in general ew, and he tore them away from his face. "Hey John?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I use your watch?"

John's shoulders slumped, silhouetted by the laptop. A moment later, something metallic and emblazoned with the IR logo landed by Gordon's side and he scrambled to find it amongst the blankets. His fingers met a cold surface and he closed his hand around it, drawing it up to his face and squinting in the bright light that blazed from the screen. It wasn't difficult to find the right contact and flip a message across.

"Thanks."

Kayo's hand squeezed his ankle. He expected her to move away after, but instead she kept it there, tapping her fingers against his bare skin to the beat of her music thrumming through her earphones. Gordon relaxed into the grasp of his makeshift bed. John didn't need to say anything, because he already knew – they'd be alright. They always were.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Disappearing was near impossible in the year 2061. Many had tried and occasionally a few succeeded, slipping under the radar for years on end until they inevitably cropped up in a distant town on a security camera – although there was always the exception of that one woman who'd managed to survive on her own in the wilderness for several decades until she'd accidentally stumbled out onto a main road. So yes, if you wanted to vanish in the modern world, you would genuinely have a better chance of going into space, but when your found-family included Tanusha Kyrano and a certain Hiram Hackenbacker and your brother was John Tracy, it became a little easier. It was only a shame that this particular disappearing act involved public transport, which Alan was fast discovering he hated. No, hate was too weak of a word – detested would be more accurate.

The flight to a remote airport frequented only by private pilots or, every couple of weeks, Air Force cadets in training, was smooth and passed relatively quickly. Alan had always felt more at home in the air than he had on the ground – many of his childhood memories were spent on planes – so when Virgil handed over the controls in order to go and discuss the finer details with Brains, Alan was more than happy to guide the plane over the ocean below. He felt closer to home than he had done in days – even the flecks of sand below marking out islands didn't draw troublesome memories to the surface.

London National Coach Station, however, was another story. For starters, it was filthy and packed past capacity with passengers. Any sense of peace Alan had revelled in back at the controls of the Cessna Citation – and then in the bear hug Virgil had dragged him into at the airfield – was quickly banished in the face of smeared grime and an overpowering stench of body odour and toilets. He was almost swept up in the rushing crowds and pressed himself flush to the closest wall.

"This is gross," he whined and rose onto his toes in order to glimpse over Brains's shoulder at the schedule and bus tickets gathered in the man's hands. "Brains? Can we leave yet?" He yelped as a woman smacked her bag into his leg on her way past, spitting curses as though it had been his fault. "Or at least get on a bus?"

Brains looked even more uncomfortable with their current surroundings than Alan did. For someone who rarely left his lab to eat at the dinner table, let alone head over to the mainland, this was similar to dropping a goldfish in the centre of the Atlantic Ocean. He fumbled to straighten out the edges of the crumpled tickets – they couldn't leave any traces on the internet this close to central London – and peered up at the departures board. "Not quite." He sounded as miserable as he looked. "Boarding doesn't start until seven-thirty."

"What?" Alan's incredulous shout drew the attention of a nearby bundle of blankets that revealed itself to be a tired man clutching a suitcase with as many tags as a tourist shop in downtown New York. "Are you kidding me?" He shot his friend a pleading look. "Brains, tell me you're kidding." Brains shook his head. "That's hours away. We're supposed to hang out here until seven-thirty? I mean," he gestured to a group of young people who appeared to be drunk university students, one of whom was currently vomiting into a waste-bin, "look at this place. We're young and innocent and too pure for this. Personally, I have never consumed alcohol in my life and my fragile mind is being contaminated by these vagabonds."

Brains gave him a non-plussed stare. He looked distinctly unimpressed. "Sometimes," he said softly, but with that scrap of plucky humour that was proof of his friendship with John, "it is v-very easy to tell that Gordon is your brother."

Alan snapped his mouth shut. "Am I being overdramatic?" Brains merely raised a brow at him in response. "Fair enough." He sighed and shifted his backpack higher onto his shoulders. "Well, we don't have to stay in this exact location at least." He pointed through the sliding doors to a Thai restaurant, gleaming green signs and flashes of glitter as the lights caught on wall-mosaics. "Hungry?"

"We have limited funds," Brains protested, but didn't struggle as Alan seized his arm and tugged him out into the relative fresh air of the street. Cars zoomed past at a rate of knots, dust and stray litter dancing in their wake, and Alan made sure to stay at the heels of a larger group when crossing to avoid being wiped out by an overeager taxi driver. Even when he'd been at boarding school in England immediately after the launch of IR, he'd stayed in the countryside far away from the insanity of the most recent additions to the mega-city group, and the noise and blaring lights were slightly more than he'd been expecting.

Luckily the Thai restaurant was mostly empty. There was a large family clustered about a central table, a cloud of birthday balloons dangling above their heads, and a couple of dates scattered here and there, but the table in the far corner, shielded from the street view by a handy divider, stood empty. Alan, with a quick grin at a nearby waiter, made a beeline for it. Brains slid into the seat opposite for him with a surreptitious check for any cameras that may have been lurking in the ceiling.

"All clear?" Alan mouthed, tilting his head to the side to try and hide his words from the approaching waiter.

Brains gave a sharp nod and swiftly buried his face in his menu. Alan, ordering a Pepsi for himself and a coffee for Brains – he was taking a wild guess here, but hey, his friend didn't seem to be complaining – referred to his usual method of choosing eating options; he closed his eyes and jabbed his finger at a random spot on the page. He frowned at it and then shrugged.

"Is that h-how you always choose your meals?" Brains sounded strangely judgemental and it was amusing coming from such a placid person.

"Hey, it works." Alan gestured towards his menu. "See? I like Chicken Satay."

"And if it had landed on the P-prawn Curry?"

"I never said it was infallible." Alan gestured to the room around them. "Sometimes you've just gotta trust in the universe."

Brains grimaced. "I prefer more s-scientific methods."

With their orders placed and Brains steadily working through the collection of codes he'd brought with him on a solo holographic projector – safe from the prying eyes of any internet connections that threatened to track them down – Alan slurped another few gulps of his Pepsi from his straw – metal, not plastic; c'mon, save the turtles here people – and took in his surroundings. It was a trick John had taught him years ago when Alan had gone through a creative writing phase – which had quickly been replaced with his long-lasting artistic endeavours, probably one of the only skills he had in common with Virgil – a way of stepping back and looking at the bigger picture before zooming in on the finer details. It was also useful when plotting possible escape routes, which Alan was definitely too used to. Normal teenager anybody? Yeah, no.

The restaurant was relatively large, but was cram-packed with tables and chairs, all neatly decorated with pristine tablecloths and folded napkins rimmed with gold. Blinds, not curtains, formed of a thin wood trapped out the flashing lights of the road outside, casting strange shadows over the carpet. Mosaic sculptures lined the walls, glittering in the glow of the neon bars strung along the far wall. Smaller lamps were set into the corners to illuminate the dining area. A coat rack stood cluttered by the waiting area. Next to it, a waiter was stretched out against the kitchen door, scrolling through his phone with a quickly smothered yawn every now and then.

Alan picked out the thin gleam of an emergency exit sign to his right and noted the door to the toilets next to the window. Good – there were plenty of options – not that he intended to use any of them. He nudged Brains's leg under the table until the scientist looked up. "What'cha doing?"

"Work," Brains replied, and slid his chair out of reach.

Alan gave a muffled whimper of protest and then dropped his head onto his arms, half-sprawled across the table. It was warm and the chatter of background noise was comforting. Basking in the strange safe haven he'd found carved out amongst the chaos, Alan almost drifted off when the scent of spices roused him from his dozing and a series of plates were set down. He didn't remember ordering the bowl of infused rice, but Brains's eyes lit up at the sight, so he didn't question it.

The food was delicious. He'd been picking bits and pieces off hospital rations, so it was a treat to actually enjoy something for once – it was worth noting that eating so much after days of having so little was a terrible idea. His plate was empty too quickly and after the third forkful of noodles he'd stolen from Brains's plate, Brains offered him the bowl of rice. Alan scraped a few spoonful's onto his plate and dug in, which was, of course, his first grave mistake.

Alan had once loved coconut. He was the weirdo who hoovered up all the Bountys from the Celebrations box and had once – surprisingly – been successful in making coconut sorbet. So, despite spending days surviving off coconut alone, he hadn't been expecting his body to react in such a way that it did.

The rice was infused with coconut. Alan had barely taken two mouthfuls of it when everything went to hell. Starting with he wasn't in the now. Gone were the mosaics, replaced by flashes of palm trees and warm blood on his hands and the choking panic of helplessness but he couldn't do anything and all he could taste was the sticky coconut, clogging his lungs. He threw back his chair, not registering the crash and stumbled into the toilets. If he'd been able to focus on anything other than the rising nausea then he'd have been thanking the world for the fact he was alone, but instead all he could do was collapse into the first stall and start heaving over the toilet.

He was shivering, but his skin felt too hot against the cool of the porcelain. Stripping his hoodie off so that he was left in his t-shirt alone, he wrapped his hands so tightly around the edge of the bowl that his fingers stung in protest. He wanted to keep his eyes open, to be able to glimpse the room around him, to believe that he wasn't back there, but rather safe in the heart of England, far away from a painful death on a distant island, but when all he could taste was the sickly tang of coconut in his mouth, it was very hard to distinguish fantasy from reality. His throat was raw when he swallowed and he leant forward to spit, coughing and struggling to draw in a ragged breath.

A soft knock sounded against the cubicle door. "A-Alan?" Brains's voice was tight with concern, and his shoes squeaked against the floor. Alan could just glimpse them out of the corner of his peripheral vision, but then his mind flashed up images of blood against sand and he doubled over the toilet again. "Are you okay?"

Alan slid down to land in a crumpled heap on the floor, leaning heavily against the wall. He was still shivering and fumbled for the flush. Brains hadn't moved from the other side of the door. He wasn't sure how to feel about that – thankful he wasn't alone or humiliated because Brains wasn't supposed to see him like this.

"I'm fine," he choked out finally. There was a doubtful silence. Alan didn't blame him – even to his own ears, he sounded rough. He cleared his throat, dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and tried again. "I'm fine. Sorry."

Brains's shoes didn't move from the door. "C-can I…is it alright if I come in?"

Alan knocked his forehead against the porcelain. He couldn't bring himself to care about the doubtless innumerable amounts of bacteria covering the surface – it felt too nice and cold against his clammy skin. "Nah," he responded after a pause to ensure he wasn't going to chuck his guts up again. "I'll come out."

Brains merely stepped aside when Alan emerged, waiting silently while Alan fumbled with the taps at the sink. The water was a rush of cold – a combination boiler that hadn't had the chance to heat up yet – raising goose-bumps along his arms and increasing the shivers that racked his body. He yanked down on the plunger of the soap, squeezing a small lake of the gel into his hands and scrubbing until all he could smell was the scent of jasmine flowers. Then, finally, he splashed the water into his face, gasping in the shock of cold. Droplets collected along his damp fringe to drip down his nose and onto the collar of his t-shirt.

Brains rested a hand on his shoulder, unspeaking, but a stable presence to steady him. Alan didn't have the words to tell him how reassuring it was. He took a deep breath and then another, raising his chin to meet the challenging stare of his reflection. His eyes were blood-shot and his skin was damp with sweat in the harsh light, but he'd definitely looked worse…on the island and yeah, no, definitely not going down that train of thought – he'd already had one adventure with the toilet tonight and he was not in the mood for another.

"I'm sorry," Brains said quietly.

"Don't be." Alan combed his fingers through his fringe until it was in a more manageable state and turned to face his friend. "You didn't know."

"I had a r-rough idea. There are only s-so many things you can live off of on an island without a clear way to identify fruit." Brains looked genuinely troubled. "I should have realised it would be a t-trigger."

Alan flinched. "It's not a trigger." He turned back to his reflection. "I'm not traumatised. I just have a few bad memories."

Brains didn't press the matter. He simply gave a nod and patted Alan's shoulder a final time. "I'll go pay."

"Sure." Alan remained in front of the sinks until the door clattered shut, leaving him in the room alone. He held himself together for a moment longer before slumping forwards against the mirror. "Dammit." He tried to focus on anything other than the memories: the mist of his breath across the glass, the drip of the tap into the basin, the distant thrum of music from the dining room. "This is ridiculous. They're fine. Absolutely fine." Except, he wanted so badly to check in; to be certain that everyone was alright; that Scott wasn't bleeding out into the sand and that Gordon wasn't dying from infection, but he couldn't. He couldn't contact anyone without alerting the GDF to his location.

"Shit."

He took a deep breath and then another. His heart – which he hadn't realised was racing up until now – was returning to a more regular pace. As he was psyching himself up to return to the dining room – and then the coach station straight out of a horror movie – his phone – safely set on John's version of airplane mode with a few extra additives to the code so that it could receive data without giving any away – chimed. Alan fished it out of his back pocket and tapped at the screen until a notification blinked into being.

"Oh wow." Suddenly he found himself laughing. "Thanks Gordon," he murmured down at his phone and then, head held high, walked back into the restaurant.

-

After the restaurant fiasco, Alan was in no hurry to wait around in the coach station, but neither was he willing to stay seated in a dining room which all the other guests had witnessed him sprint from like a madman. Brains agreed with him, so they took a taxi over to the Thames. The air-con was turned far too high, but frankly Alan wasn't too sure that he wouldn't have thrown himself out of the car in the middle of the street if it had been a heating malfunction instead.

It felt strangely like a holiday as they wandered along the riverside. Alan pranced along the wall and tried not to fall off every time he had to duck an overhanging tree branch, and Brains marvelled in pointing out the intriguing architectural designs of the latest additions to the London skyline. A cluster of children on a school trip were being lectured on the history of the city and Alan sat on the wall, feet dangling above the water that rushed past, and listened whilst Brains wandered on ahead. It was a bright day, with scattered clouds and a swift wind that ruffled his hair and carried the scent of sugar from the fairground further downstream. Alan zoned out as the teacher's voice faded into background noise and examined the boats bobbing along. A young boy – presumably on holiday as he was in a yellow duck bus – waved and Alan amused himself with waving back and seeing how long it would take before the kid gave up. At some point Brains returned with a small bag of fresh popcorn dusted in cinnamon and sugar, and they picked at it, sharing the portions roughly equally without talking. It was peaceful. Alan felt like a tourist. Brains's small smile suggested that he did too.

By the time they returned to the coach station it had turned from sunset to dusk, and the city was transformed from a silver and grey chalkboard to a waking club of lights, camera, action. Alan was beginning to truly feel the jetlag, and stuck close to Brains's side as they picked their way through the crowds. If possible, it seemed that the station was even more packed than when they had left, with queues of waiting passengers shimmying their way between luggage holders and over-spilling cafes. Alan left Brains by their gate with the backpacks whilst he went for a snack run. He found the shortest queue for a store and was waiting in line when his attention was caught by the flash of a familiar logo across a TV screen.

There was about half a second when Alan thought he'd imagined it, but then curiosity won out and he ducked under arms and baggage to catch a better view.

"Excuse me, I just need to, don't mind me, sorry, sorry, excuse me, uh, my bad, sorry, thanks." He stumbled into a relatively clear patch of ground and stared up at the screen. The quality wasn't great, and the news reporter's words were inaudible, instead scrawled in inaccurate subtitles along the base of the picture, but Alan would have recognised the photo anyway. Or, rather, the craft within the photo. He turned on his heels and tore through the terminal.

"Brains!"

Brains, startled, looked up, hands flying to protect the backpack on his lap. "What's wrong?"

"They've found Thunderbird Four." Alan took a moment to catch his breath. "She washed up on a beach. Should we let John know?"

"EOS would have a-alerted him," Brains pointed out. His fingers twitched closer to his own IR-issued watch, clearly itching with the urge to take a proper look at the damage the submarine had no doubt suffered. Alan had seen with his own eyes the horrors a strong current could inflict on a craft and hoped for Gordon's sake that his brother hadn't started wondering about Four's predicament. It was a lost cause, and he knew it – if their roles had been reversed, he knew he'd have been worrying over Three just as much.

"Alright," he sighed. "How much longer?"

Brains pointed to the departures screen. "Ten minutes."

"I'll go get that water then."

In the end, he returned with two water bottles, a packet of Walkers crisps and a suspiciously red apple – Virgil's voice was nagging in his head about five a day, keep your vitamin intake high, Alan. Boarding was a straightforward process, especially given John had reserved them seats at the front – Brains got car sick often and being able to look through the windscreen at the horizon was a helpful trick – and it was only a further fifteen minutes before they were out on the road. Their driver was a gruff man with a quick wit about him and the rest of the passengers seemed a cheerful bunch. The lady opposite offered Brains a Malteaser and then promptly asked if his son would like one, which Alan proceeded to make teasing remarks to Brains about for the next hour. Hey, old man, you feeling okay? It was a truly remarkable thing just how far Brains's patience would stretch.

Alan kicked off his trainers and stowed his backpack in the overheard locker next to Brains's after retrieving his blanket and a book he'd borrowed – not stealing, Scott, honest - from the hospital. He stuck his earphones in and scrolled through his phone – the only technology other than his watch that he was allowed on him – until he found his chill playlist. Hitting shuffle, he proceeded to curl up against the window and watch the world fly past.

The sky had deepened to a purple haze, a pink glow creeping about the rim of penthouses and tucking skyscrapers into bed. A thick pall of light pollution covered the stars from sight, but Alan knew that they would soon come out to dance in the darker skies outside the city's boundaries. Other cars sped past, their windscreens speckled with the rain that was steadily approaching from the south. The temperature outside was evidently plummeting as the glass was cold to touch, and a small painting of condensation formed around his window where he was leant against it. It was dark enough that he needed to flick on the light overheard as he made a start on his book. The pages were worn, sometimes pencilled and frequently folded at the corners; marks of age and previous owners. There was something humbling about the idea of so many people having held and read this very copy before him, and Alan wondered about their stories – did they have relatives in hospital? Who was the original owner? Did the readers now remember this novel with a sense of sadness or nostalgia? – as he turned each page.

At some point he must have fallen asleep as he floundered back into awareness to discover the overhead light had been turned off and his blanket had been tucked carefully around his shoulders. The corner of his book was folded over to keep his position, and the novel itself was held in the seat-pocket in front. A glance out of the window revealed that the winding roads of London had been replaced with a thick band of motorway disappearing into the distance, and a sky speckled with a light dusting of clouds and stars. Past raindrops were still visible on the glass, glinting in the light of passing headlamps. Alan yawned, stretched his legs out a little further and mumbled his thanks to Brains, who gave that soft smile of his that he always did when he had done something to prove how much he cared about his family but wasn't quite sure how to translate those feelings into words.

Alan was no stranger to the type of sleep that jetlag brought with it – the kind of thick, confusing sleep that made time inconsequential and left you with brief periods of lucidity when you couldn't quite tell if you were dreaming or not. He flitted between snatches of slumber and blinks of consciousness – the bus was in darkness with the exception of the blue aisle lights and the glowing dashboard, then he was slumped over Brains's shoulder and Brains was letting him, rain was pattering against the window, suddenly he was full-on using his friend as a pillow and Brains was still letting him, half-asleep himself with his glasses dropped onto his chest. Time was stretched and lost all at once. Alan accidentally kicked the seat in front but then he was asleep again before he could register any pain. Someone was lifting a blanket over him, there was a muffled screech of brakes, a child was singing, and a mother was hushing her. Alan rolled onto his back and flung his arms out to try and ease the ache in his back. A hand guided his wrists away from the aisle where he was in danger of tripping someone. He was warm, and it was safe, and there was someone's hand resting on his shoulder, their pulse steady against his skin, through his t-shirt and then, and then, and then…

He was knee-deep in the sand.

Alan whipped around, but all that could be seen was blue sky and a scorching sun.

The beach was burning, his arms blistering in front of his eyes.

"Hello?"

Someone screamed. Alan flung out his arms and clawed and scratched at the sand, frantically digging, but as quickly as he moved, the beach refilled. A wave rushed in, flooding higher and higher and then it was receding, but when he glanced down the water was scarlet, as pure red as blood. His mouth tasted of copper. There was a body slumped across the beach a few metres away, and suddenly Alan was free, sprinting across the beach and collapsing to his knees because he already knew, he already knew.

"Scott." Everything was red. "Scott!" He couldn't breathe. He couldn't anything. His hands were right there, smothered in blood and Scott wasn't moving, wasn't breathing and oh god, no, no, no, no. "Scott! No, no, no, this isn't real… this…" But the baking heat was the same, the palm fronds were wavering, and the sky was that familiar poisonous blue and everything was dripping, drenched in scarlet. "Please, please, please." And he couldn't cry, he couldn't breathe, but the tide was coming in but,

"Alan!"

He was alone on the beach. The sand was gold, the sea was blue and so was the sky above. The only crimson in the world was dripping from his hands and he clutched his fists to his chest with a strangled sob. Someone was screaming, but it wasn't him, he wasn't alone, he wasn't, he wasn't…here. The wind was wild, keening and thrashing with a wild desire for life, but the cliff edge was mere metres away.

"Allie?"

Alan blinked. The sky was thick with cloud, dark and foreboding. His face was wet with tears, stinging in the force of the gale.

"Hey."

He took a wavering step forward. "Gordon?"

"Where are you?"

"What do you…I'm right here." Alan stared at his brother. He reached out with quivering hands and the ground was quaking beneath his feet. "Gordon, I'm right here."

"No." Gordon was backing away, shaking his head. "No, you're not. You left us to die."

Alan stumbled after him, but his feet were weighed down like lead. Someone was distantly shouting, screaming, shrieking his name, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Scott was gone and Gordon was right there, and Gordon was…

"I'm here," he repeated, again and again until he could no longer hear his voice. Gordon was staring at him and Alan wasn't sure which of them was begging for help, but his gaze travelled down to his brother's chest where an awful stain was spreading, black blood and infection and he flung himself forwards but Gordon took a step backwards and fell. Alan lunged after him, reaching out, seizing Gordon's wrist, but they were falling, falling and then he was drowning in the sand again and everything was red, black and dying and…

"Alan!"

Alan bolted upright, panting for air. He couldn't get enough into his lungs and a frantic wheezing sound escaped from his throat. Brains's hands were clasped on his shoulders and at Alan's panicked whine, the scientist's eyes widened with understanding.

"Stop. Hold your breath for one c-count." Alan screwed his eyes shut and shook his head frantically, but that made him feel dizzy even in the cover of darkness. Brains's voice was level, drawing him back to the present; back to sweaty blankets and passing car lights. "That's good. Now take a breath."

Alan took in a merciful gulp of oxygen. His heart was pounding like a hummingbird against his ribs and his hair felt damp with sweat. He could feel his t-shirt was plastered to his back like a second skin and rolled his shoulders, grimacing as it unpeeled.

"Well," he chuckled humourlessly, "that sucked."

Brains wordlessly pulled him in for a hug. Alan buried his face in his friend's shoulder and focussed on the feeling of Brains's breathing against his chest and everything that was tangible – the hard plastic of his glasses digging into Alan's shoulder, the soft glow of the portable Micro-MAX drive attached to his wrist and the sound of his heartbeat. The bus was rolling beneath them, carrying them faithfully northwards.

Brains let Alan pull away first. For someone who avoided physical contact, this was a pretty big sign of trust and an important gesture, and Alan recognised this.

"Sorry."

Brains didn't say he didn't have to apologise, like his brothers would have done – seriously, Scott had once gone into a full-on lecture about never apologise for expressing emotions, it's an incredibly toxic mindset – rather he simply nodded – he knew that sometimes the words just had to be said, even if their meaning was not vital. He didn't mention the nightmare either. Alan shivered in the blast of aircon from above. Being sat in the full force of the cold when he was soaked in sweat was not a fun experience.

"We're five minutes out from a service station," Brains told him. "We're stopping for about an hour."

Alan scrubbed the last remnants of the nightmare from his face and sat up. "How long have we been driving?"

"Five hours, g-give or take."

He did the mental calculations. They should be arriving at their final destination at around mid-morning and from what little he could recall from geography classes – he rarely took rescues that brought him to far-reaches of Scotland – it was going to be really cold. Cold was good. Cold forced him into the present, reminding him that this was real.

Surviving was easier, if he really thought long and hard about it. Survival was a matter of going back to basics, taking things step by step – it was based around logic and you could rely on facts. Things could go wrong, certainly, but it was a matter of perspective and working out solutions based on reality – the subconscious world was much trickier. For starters, there was nothing set in stone that you could use to prove whether what you were seeing was fact or fiction. Alan had to rely on trust alone – he had to force himself to believe that what his senses were telling him was the truth. On the island, he had fallen into a religious pattern of care, hope and survival – now, without the constant worry for his brothers' lives keeping him sharp and in control of his own thoughts, his mind was creating a maze full of mines – each haunting memory a new path riddled with its own dangers. He couldn't be sure what would trigger a repressed thought from the island – what would draw the panic he'd repressed when first spotting that gaping wound on Scott's chest back to the surface.

Having said that, he had a pretty good idea that it was the taillights from the disappearing car that drove past as he stepped out of the bus that sent him into his next spiral.

The air was brisk, biting at any snatches of exposed skin. Next to him, Brains tucked his scarf closer around his neck and shivered, teeth faintly chattering. The sounds of the motorway were distant – there was little traffic on the road at this time of night – and the lights from the service station blared warm and welcoming like a beacon in a stormy sea. Alan nearly tripped down the steps, stumbling over his undone laces and wind-milling his arms in order to catch his balance. Other passengers side-stepped, shooting him dirty looks as they neatly filed through the opened doors.

"I'm g-going to get s-something to eat," Brains said, visibly shivering. Alan didn't think it was that cold, but then again Brains rarely left Tracy Island, so the higher temperatures that weren't present in hospital wards or super-powered rockets were his normal.

"Sure." He waved his friend onwards. "I'll catch you later."

Brains directed a stern look at him. "Don't try contacting anyone."

"What, d'you think I'm stupid?" Brains didn't pointedly pause or anything, but there was a definite hesitation there. Alan sighed. "Yeah, I know. I won't."

With Brains vanished – presumably scouting out the best cafes and restaurants still serving full meals at this time of the night – Alan remained in the carpark for a moment or two longer. The driver gave a little dip of the head in acknowledgement as he locked the bus up and headed after his passengers, and Alan offered a relaxed smile in return. Leaning back against the side of the bus, he tilted his head back to stare at the glimmers of stars through the scattered clouds. A satellite skimmed past, distant and cold – Alan knew it wasn't Five – Five wasn't due to pass over here for another hour or so. He collected himself up from his slump and paused for a car that was heading out – the taillights smeared his hands in a red glow and for a second Alan forgot how to breathe. His hands were drenched in blood again, but no. It was merely a trick of the light.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Dammit," he hissed through clenched teeth. His breath steamed in the air. With every step, he imagined he could still feel the grains of sand scraping and chipping away at his skin. He needed a shower – pronto.

He was greeted with a wave of heat when he stepped into the station. A couple of the cafes were jam-packed with passengers from the night coach and a few drivers who obviously frequented this establishment regularly were laughing and slapping each other on the back with wide grins and dark-circled eyes. Alan imagined that they resembled a pack of lemurs reunited after days of travelling.

A few other unsavoury characters were dotted about. There was a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a five-day-old newspaper clutched to his beer-splattered shirt who kept leering at people who walked past. A woman with streaked pink hair and smeared mascara sat nursing a glass of whisky at the bar. In a store, a teenager was asleep on the check-out desk. Alan didn't want to interrupt the drivers, but unfortunately these were the only other people who would know the place well enough to answer his question, so he picked the least dodgy-looking of the lot – a thirty-something woman with a massive backpack and glare to spoil fresh milk – and hesitantly tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned – slowly, like an ancient clockwork doll triggered into life after years of collecting dust – and raised her sunglasses. Her pupils were massive so that the grey of her irises was barely visible. "What?" She snapped.

Alan gulped. "Um…I was…uh…I was wondering if you could tell me where the showers are. Please. Thank you. Sorry. Um, yeah."

Her face softened. She twisted her sunglasses into her tangled hair and shrugged her backpack off, leaving it in a corner. "Come on ducky, I'll show you."

Following a stranger with questionable motives – Alan was pretty sure he was failing every single stranger-danger class out there. Also, ducky? He glanced down to double-check he wasn't wearing his Donald-the-Duck socks that Grandma had bought him as a joke present last Christmas, but no, he was definitely not clad in any bird-related merchandise. Random nicknames it was then.

Backpack-Woman led him to a dodgy looking corridor lined with strip lighting which flickered whenever the music in the bar next door blared too loud. There was a lopsided sign reading toilets with arrow pointing to the end of the corridor, which was also promising.

"Down there," Backpack-Woman explained when he didn't move. "It's a bit dark but it's clean, I promise ya." She hesitated, then added, "come and see me when you're done if you're hungry or somethin'. I know Jimmy and he'll give me a good deal on the tacos."

"Why?" Alan was genuinely curious. "Why help me?"

She chuckled. "I dunno. You seem like a good 'un ducky, that's all." She patted him on the shoulder and retreated back to her backpack. Alan took a minute to wonder at the marvel that was people – how appearances could be so deceiving and that many of the best people in life were like diamonds in the rough – covered with a rocky, unappealing exterior – built up for their own protection - but beautiful on the inside. It was a philosophy that Virgil had always stood by; maybe there truly was something to it.

The bathrooms were shabby but clean. There was a peeling notice on the door of the shower cubicle warning Alan that the water was 'cool' as the boiler was still under repair, but he was too eager to get rid of the sweat clinging to his skin to care. There was no one else around other than a young university student that Alan remembered from the bus, who emerged from a toilet and headed back to the main complex.

"Yo, dude," he called over his shoulder, hovering by the door. "You know we've only got like forty-five minutes left, right?"

Alan forced a smile. "Yeah, it's all good. I've got time."

"Alright. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. See you back at the bus."

As soon as the door had closed behind him, Alan slid the lock shut and tore off his sweaty clothes. Twisting the shower on with one hand, he tossed the bundle of clothing into the corner and fumbled to retrieve the travel bottle of shower gel from his backpack. The water wasn't hot – he couldn't cook himself like a lobster as he did at home – but it was more than warm enough for him not to leap out screeching like a banshee. If anything, it was refreshing and he stepped into the full force of the spray until all he could hear was the roar of the water. It drowned out his thoughts and when he closed his eyes, he could breathe without that same nagging paranoia of someone dying on his watch.

He could still feel fragments of sand clinging to his skin. Even with the water rushing down around him, it took scrubbing until his arms and legs were flushed an angry red for him to finally be rid of the phantom sensation. Staring at his skin with a morbid fascination, the thunder of the shower was suddenly too much and he needed it quiet. The water shut off and all that was left was the faint splashes from the showerhead and his own heavy breathing.

"Okay." He let out a long breath and imagined the tension leaking out of his shoulders like the water trickling down his back from his hair. "It's okay." He scrubbed a hand through his wet hair and fought back a sneeze as he finally realised how cold he was. "I'm okay." His own reflection stared back doubtfully from the mirror on the door. "I will be okay," he corrected himself, examining freckles stark against pale skin and bloodshot eyes from nightmares and setting about replacing it with an image vaguely more human.

He'd grabbed a hospital-issued towel, but it was relatively soft and warm from where the backpack had kept it dry. It was easy enough to clamber into a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved thermal top under his old band-tee, but he was forced to scrub his hair with the remaining dry part of the towel until it was simply damp as opposed to wet. He ran his hands through it a couple of times, but it remained stubbornly messy and the faint curls that always came when it was damp were beginning to rear their heads. He examined his reflection again as he stuffed his old things back into the rucksack; his hair was almost brown, dark with water, making him appear paler than usual, but in his clean clothes he felt more normal than he had in a while – normal enough to loop his backpack around his shoulder and head out to find Backpack-Woman.

"Feeling better now, ducky?" She queried as her 'old pal Jimmy' set about creating their platter of tacos for them, on the house. "You seemed kinda wound up when you walked in 'ere." She made a crude gesture with her hands and Jimmy spluttered with laughter from the kitchen.

Alan grinned despite himself. "Yeah, thanks."

"Running from someone?"

"Kinda."

She hummed and inclined her head to one side. Her hair fell in waves, revealing an array of silver and black necklaces. "Relatable. Family?"

Alan snorted. "The opposite. I'd like to get back to my family." He sunk down on his bar stool until his chin hit the wood. "That's not happening for a while yet though."

"Wrong side of the law?" She had a twinkle in her eye. "Because let me tell ya, it ain't gonna bother me. I've done my fair time sprinting from the authorities."

Somehow this really didn't surprise Alan.

Their tacos arrived on a slate platter, piled high with still-hot shells and thick sauces with a heap of chunky chips with salt on the side. Alan hadn't realised how hungry he was until the smell hit him, and then he was wolfing it down, Backpack-Woman – god, he really needed to ask her name – matching his pace. Jimmy watched them with pride.

"Told you," he smirked, jerking his head towards the sign on the wall, "best tacos in the UK."

It could have been because he was so hungry, but Alan was more than happy to agree with him. As they were finishing up, he caught sight of Brains heading over, looking vaguely concerned at the sight of Backpack-Woman. She followed his line of sight and laughed.

"Friend of yours?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." She dragged him into a swift but tight hug. "Take care ducky. Remember," she tapped her nose secretively, "the nightmares don't last forever."

-

Gordon woke with a start to someone shaking his shoulder. He would have instinctively lashed out but the hands on him were soft, barely gripping him at all, and when he opened his eyes he was met with an exhausted blond blur.

"Meh," he whined, in place of hi John.

John, with a crazed glint in his eyes, released him. "Good, you're up." He clambered to his feet and swung into his chair, one leg still slung over the side as though it didn't belong to him. "Come have a look at this. I want a second opinion."

Gordon was sorely tempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but the urgency in his brother's voice suggested this would not be the best course of action, however tempting it seemed. Besides, John was an evil genius in his right mind and sleep deprivation could do funny things to a guy – ahem, Scott, 2052, that one time in Philadelphia. With a groan, he crawled out of his nest and limped until he was able to perch on the edge of the table and peer over John's shoulder.

"What's up?" He asked through an ear-splitting yawn. John wordlessly turned the laptop to face him and he stared blearily at the screen, rubbing his eyes and squinting until it came into focus. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

John jabbed a finger at one of the lines of code strung across the screen. "That."

"What about it?"

"Is it different to the others?"

"Um…" Gordon palmed his eyes, yawned again, and took a closer look. The numbers appeared the same, but there was something slightly off about them, as though they'd been twisted. It was barely distinguishable, but yes, there was a digit swapped and a slight misalignment. "Yeah," he finally agreed. "It's been altered, right?"

John grinned maniacally. "Exactly!"

"Ugh." Gordon rubbed his temples, silently begging his headache to go away. "Is that a good thing?" He listed sideways to rest his weight fully on the table. "Tell me it's a good thing."

"It's a great thing." John's hands were flying while he spoke, quicker and quicker until they were a blur in Gordon's tired vision. "This, right here, is buried deep within the internal security logs within our emergency systems and…" He trailed off, brow twisted with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm tired, hungry, my leg hurts and I've got the headache from hell."

"Oh." John lifted a heap of paper, tossed an empty coffee carton into the trash and retrieved a rather squashed looking sandwich packet. "I've only eaten one. Want the other?"

"Type?"

"No-one, preferably."

"John, for fuck's sake. What's in the sandwich?"

"BLT."

"Ah." Gordon made grabby hands. "The superior filling. Gimme."

John continued in his unnecessarily complicated explanation while Gordon sat and munched on the sandwich – sometimes his brother definitely forgot that not everyone was a super-genius with a degree in advanced programming that they didn't even need but took for fun anyway.

"So," Gordon concluded, licking ketchup from his fingers. "This is the proof you needed to clear Brains's name?"

John was watching him with disgust. "Can't you use a napkin like a normal person?"

"Who calls it a napkin instead of a tissue? That's so English. Penny would be proud. Also," Gordon flicked a stray slither of lettuce at his brother and cackled at the way John flinched away, "au contraire mon frère, I think you'll find that this is the normal way." He scrunched his nose. "Who wastes ketchup?"

"People with table manners," John shot back.

Gordon gave a dramatic gasp. "Excuse me. I have excellent manners." He shook his head and instantly regretted it. John slid a strip of painkillers across and he dry-popped them. "Ah, my sweet drugs, how I have missed you."

"I think I preferred you when you were asleep."

"Shut it, alien. I think I preferred you when you were off-planet."

You see this? This right here? This was how Gordon knew he and John were okay. Their banter was often barbed to a point close to sheer cruelty, digging into weak spots but with enough skill to know where not to hit and when to stop. John had that dark sense of humour mixed with the quick wit to match Gordon's jabs and as such their friendship worked. Gordon knew when John was joking and when he was being serious, which was a useful skill to have given some people often just perceived his brother as being rude – which he wasn't, he just didn't like people very much and yes, they were all aware of the fantastic irony of this given John's role.

"What now?" Gordon asked, attempting to throw the packet to the bin.

John stole it from his hands and landed it on the first attempt. "Now, I submit this to Colonel Casey, and we head down to meet up with Brains and Alan. We'll stay in Scotland for a day longer until we hear from the GDF that we've got the all-clear, then we'll all go home. Scott and Virgil will meet us as soon as the hospital are satisfied that his body's taken to the immune-mods well enough for him to finish healing under our watch."

Gordon was still stuck on the words go home. His brain had short-circuited after that. It had seemed such a foreign concept that he hadn't dared allow himself to hope, but now it was within reach he just…couldn't. "Cool," he said brightly, and sniffed into his sleeve. "Cool, cool, cool."

"Stop saying cool."

"Yep, my bad."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

When Alan stepped off the bus, the air was thick with fog. It wrapped around him like a woollen jumper, soft shades of grey and pearl darkening to a lonely heather of the clouds above. It was impossible to tell where the land ended and the sky began; the horizon was lost to a sea of dappled cotton. Alan held up a hand and grinned as his fingers were hidden from view by the mist.

This was the final stop. It also seemed to be the most desolate one. The only other remaining passenger – a man with a stack of fishing rods protruding from his duffle bag – muttered a gruff farewell and vanished into the fog. As the coach pulled away, Alan was suddenly struck with a fierce sense of peacefulness – he didn't have the slightest clue where they were or what their next move would be, but as he stood wrapped up in the clouds he felt as free as the eagle that soared above, ducking from one bank to another.

"It's this way," Brains reported, glancing up from intently studying his electronic map. There was a grim determination on his face as he squinted into the fog. "About a fifteen-minute walk down to the waterfront."

Alan lifted his rucksack onto his shoulders. "We're staying next to the sea?"

"Yes."

He grinned. "Great."

The road was long and winding, slippery underfoot as it snaked its way downwards. Painted markings were worn and faded so that signage was essentially unreadable; Alan really hoped that Brains's map was correct because if they'd gone the wrong way it would be a difficult climb back up again. His breath was hot and steaming in the air with each exhale, and every inhale was sharp with cold. He could taste the salt on his lips from the sea air and the scent of the ocean was thick in the clouds. There was no wind – it was so still that Alan wondered whether he was even awake. All sounds were muffled so that Brains's footsteps, mere inches ahead of him, were muted.

The cottage sprang out of the headland – a speck of white against a roar of violent greens and dove-clouds. Alan dumped his bags by the gate and ran around to the front where the beach stretched out, seemingly forever. A vast expanse of white sand spread out in front of him, bordered by a line of raging grey waves, each one rearing its head higher than the last. The growl of the ocean was familiar from stormy nights at home and he closed his eyes, drinking in the sound.

"Alan!" Brains had managed to enter the house. His head was stuck out of the front window as he called down. "It's starting to r-rain."

Alan tore himself away from the views and wandered back to the cottage. Above them, the road slithered back around the hill like an oily eel, slick with water as it faded into the low clouds. He imagined it would be easy to hide away here forever; to lose any concept of time in the face of the true wilderness. It didn't seem to be such an unappealing idea.

"Hungry?" Brains asked as Alan kicked off his trainers under the warming radiator and knocked the door shut behind him with his heel. It had been a good six hours since their stop at the service station, if not more, and when he started thinking about food, Alan registered that he was starving. His stomach gave a loud grumble of protest. Brains tried to hide his smile. "There's f-food in the fridge."

"What kind?" Alan hopped up onto the counter as Brains opened the fridge to show him. "The kind we have to actually cook, or the kind we can pop in the microwave and have done with?" Brains pulled out a bag brimming with fresh vegetables and a packet of sausages with a shrug. Alan yawned and leapt down to help him. "A little bit of both, I guess."

Alan wasn't a bad chef. He was unorganised and often ended up with more of the food over himself than on the plates, but if you handed him a recipe then he could follow it step-by-step and produce an edible and surprisingly tasty dish by the end of it. Brains was obsessive over the tiny details – he was used to checking everything right down to the smallest molecule and when he joined the culinary world, it was under rigorous testing in his lab with MAX at hand to help when necessary. As such, they had to compromise and after some dirty looks from a certain scientist and laughing protests from a particular teenager, they ended up eating at the table by the window which overlooked the sea.

"Should I a-ask you about the…"

"Nightmares?" Alan finished for him. "No."

Rain lashed against the window. Thunder rumbled in the distance, like engines. Alan stabbed a piece of carrot with his fork with more aggression than strictly necessary. Brains looked contemplative.

"Will you talk to your brothers?"

Alan stared out the window, silent. "Maybe," he admitted after a pause. "Alright, definitely. I'll talk to Virg if it doesn't get any better."

"It will."

He scooped potato onto his fork. "I hope so."

-

"Hey." Gordon glanced up at the sound of John's voice, just in time to catch the packet of cookies flying towards him.

"What is with you and throwing things at my head?" He complained loudly, tearing the end off with his teeth and shoving two cookies into his mouth at once – this was not his record. He definitely had great manners John, what are you talking about?

John, looking a lot more refreshed since making use of the GDF facilities – namely a bed and a shower – he was actually paying attention to his human needs now that the evidence had been passed off to the GDF's capable hands – shrugged. "It's a big target."

"Are you insulting me?"

John shot him a side-ways look. "What do you think?"

"I think you're the one who needs to learn some manners. Also," Gordon offered him a cookie and John accepted it with a suspicious stare, "you need some practise because that throw was way off target."

"Shut it, Hawkeye."

Gordon clasped a hand to his chest in shock and almost tumbled off the bonnet of the car he was perched on. "Was that a Marvel reference?" He flailed his arms to add to the drama of the moment, just in case John wasn't appreciating the extra high pitch he'd used for effect. "Johnny, are you finally appreciating pop-culture?"

"No," John growled. "And don't call me Johnny."

Gordon shrugged and returned to his cookies. He preferred gingersnaps or sugar-cookies, but hey, chocolate-chip would do, even if it was off-brand from the GDF cafeteria.

They were preparing to set off into the damp depths of the UK – no, really, Gordon had seen the weather-forecast and yeesh. Someone should bring a rain-mac. Their plane wasn't due to take off for another twenty minutes or so but the idea of lounging around a terminal didn't appeal to either of them, especially when this was the last spot of sunshine they were likely to see for a couple of days, and given that they owned this hanger – and therefore the land in front of it for a few metres of parking space – it made sense to stay out in the open air for a little while longer. John had headed inside to check in and grab a few snacks and a coffee – and also a toothbrush because Gordon promptly announced that his hospital-issued one had gone walkabout – while Gordon had crawled onto the bonnet and flaked out in the sunshine.

"Who are you texting?" John queried, taking a sip of his iced coffee – this was a rarity, but it was too hot for ordinary caffeine – besides, in Gordon's opinion iced drinks were far superior anyway.

He hid his phone from John's view. There was no reason why – it was only Scott – but mysteries bugged John, and always had. "No-one." As if on cue, his phone chimed.

John feigned nonchalance, but his gaze kept sliding over. Gordon felt sort of bad for him and tilted the screen so his brother could see.

"Well at least we know the mods took," John commented. He stirred the ice-cubes in his drink until the liquid was a dilute caramel. "He seems as overprotective as ever."

"Pot, kettle."

"Sorry, did you mean Virgil?"

"Alright Google, my bad."

John laughed – honest-to-god proper laughter. Gordon hadn't even been trying that hard. He lay back against the windscreen and smiled. John deserved to take a break. Hell, they all did. But jeez, he didn't think he'd seen his brother sleep in days and if the truth be known, this was why neither of them was acting pilot – Gordon wasn't medically cleared yet, and John knew deep down that he was too sleep-deprived – reflexes, who?

"It's weird."

John was frowning as he rubbed at a chip in the sleek paintwork of the car. "What is?"

"I spent a week constantly checking on them, and now…I can't even contact Alan."

"You'll see him in a couple of hours. We're flying direct to Scotland."

Gordon traced the contrails streaking across the sky and picked out the little red specks of aircraft descending and soaring back and forth. "Still weird."

"I get it."

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh." John sounded distracted but Gordon knew him well enough to know otherwise. "It'll be strange when I head up to Five again."

This was actually fair point. Gordon hadn't ever considered it in that way before. John wasn't the overbearing in-your-face protective figure that Scott definitely was, and Virgil could be; he was the quiet one lurking in the background and threatening to destroy your life with a single tap of a button if you so much as thought about hurting someone he cared about. It was easy to forget that John went from being surrounded by the constant array of people on Tracy Island to remaining alone on Thunderbird Five for weeks on end – or even years, if you counted that one godforsaken time that Gordon refused to think about because hello, Dad's gone and oof, he had issues – even for someone in the running for the world's-largest-introvert-prize, it was a bit much.

"You should come down more."

John didn't react. He took another long swig of his coffee. "Probably," he acknowledged at last. Gordon offered him another cookie and he took it. "What's Scott saying now?"

Gordon checked his phone. "Asking about you, actually."

"Shocker." John hid his grin. "Tell him I'm plotting to take over France again."

"Again?"

"Oh, the first time was an accident. Besides, it wasn't a takeover – just a mild break-in to their codes and therefore... you know what? That's it. You don't get to know anymore."

"You took over a country?"

John slid off the bonnet. "College got boring."

Gordon was left gaping after him. "John?" He crawled down and half-hopped half-limped – his bad leg was cramping again – after his brother. "John! You can't just drop that into a conversation and walk off! What d'you mean you took over France? John? John!"

-

Grandpa Grant (Jeff's father) had never been interested in a swimmer's life, but Grandad (Lucille's father who they hadn't actually had all that much to do with, especially since he'd died when they were all still too little to form strong, lasting memories) had spent much of his life amongst the waves, having been an avid surfer; a trait which had skipped their mom but had been inherited by Scott, with Gordon sticking to the actual swimming side of things. Consequently, he'd always drummed into his little girl (who had then passed this information on to her own children; all five of them) the lessons he'd learnt over the years. There was the obvious the ocean is to be respected and feared, never allow yourself to grow so arrogant as to believe you are the one in control because the sea is always, always, stronger, which was mostly common sense, but there was also another warning which their grandfather had first heard during one of his volunteering trips to the Caribbean during his college days, which was never go into the ocean at night. Alan had been too young, barely six months old when Grandad had first been diagnosed, but Scott, floundering through the first years of Middle School with as much enthusiasm as a fish out of water, had asked more questions, to which the answers had been extraordinarily vague and had raised more mysteries than they had solved. Things come in. It's warmer at the shore at night. None of us know what's really out there, in the depths.

"Things come in," Alan repeated aloud, and shifted a little further towards the edge of the large rock he was perched on. It was one of the many boulders locked into the sand at the water's fingertips, lost from the cliffs a dozen landslips ago, tall enough and broad enough for a lanky teenage boy (growth spurts were still overpowering gym sessions, although it was a guarantee at this point that no matter how hard he tried, Alan was going to take after John rather than Virgil) to sit on the top with the waves splashing just high enough to catch his ankles in their spittle. "Things come in." He ducked his feet into the water, hissing as the icy chill chased his toes even as he yanked them back up and shoved them under his thighs to try and ignite any warmth in his veins. There didn't seem to be anything beyond the murky flow of sandstorms within the ripples of waves and the frost of the moonshine against the sea drops left on his skin.

There was a feeling that came with flying a rocket or with any trip into space that there was something more out there. Human nature was filled with curiosity; it was what led the Wright Brothers into the clouds (even if they didn't make it quite that high) and the first submarines beneath the waves; what brought explorers to the rocky peaks of mountains and lush jungles of tiger stripes and amber casts; what directed future sights to the sky and beyond; what would eventually lead to a successful Eden project, carrying humans to distant homes among the bright stars and planets up there.

Aside from the natural waves brought by currents, the sea was still and flat, laying like an expanse of silk from Alan's rock to the horizon and beyond. It was so calm that it was turned silver by the moon and dusted with the reflections of stars. He shivered.

"This is getting ridiculous."

A gull cawed in the distance. It sounded lonely. The entire place seemed lonely. Peaceful, but lonely.

"I just want to sleep. I need to sleep."

No. It wasn't happening. He was still as wide awake as Virgil after five cups of coffee and an adrenaline high heading out on a rescue.

He remained flung across the rock for a little while longer. It wasn't immensely comfortable - snags of stone were digging into the curve of his spine and caught at the fabric of his jumper around his shoulders – but it was a great view. Somehow, despite flying amongst them and having a brother who literally lived off-planet, Alan had never stopped being fascinated by the stars. They were entrancing, a miracle. Not the miracle he needed – that belonged to sleep and a promise that his family would be alright – but a miracle all the same.

The first vibrations were barely skitters; tiny shivers that raced through the water and trembled against his fingertips where he had one arm dangling over the edge. Then, the distant thunder echoed across the bay; the rumble of engines. The distinctive whine of FAB1 cut through the empty air. Alan bolted upright, searching for headlights. There were none, but he slid off the rock, angry scratches searing across his feet from the sharp stones cut by the sea at its base, and darted up the beach to the cottage. It was dark inside – only the dim embers of the fire still lit the living-room, the bulk of the sofa and kitchen island looming like strange creatures out of the darkness – and Alan almost tripped over the frayed edge of the rug in front of the fire place on his way to the staircase.

At home, he knew which stairs on which staircases squeaked and which ones had traces of glitter-glue on them that still remained despite multiple cleaning attempts. Here, everything was new, even after two days. Alan took them two, sometimes three at a time. Stairs screeched beneath his bare feet, grains of sand skidding across the floorboards. He flung open the door to the master bedroom – which, despite its grand title, was actually closer to the size of an average bathroom with just enough room for a double-bed and a single-drawer dresser with a lone lamp on the top.

"Brains! Wake up!"

"If I w-wasn't awake before," Brains muttered, fumbling for the lamp switch, "I s-sure am now."

"Huh?"

"You threw the backdoor o-open. It s-slammed shut...loudly."

"Oh." Alan didn't waste too much time on this, but the socially acceptable thing to do was to apologise and there was a voice that sounded a bit too much like Grandma for his liking in his head. "Sorry. Anyway, I can hear FAB1."

Lamp switch finally found, Brains sat up. Rubbing at his eyes and slotting his trademark glasses into place, he reached for the coat draped over the end of the bed and followed Alan back down the stairs.

"That didn't take them long," he murmured, and gingerly lay a hand on Alan's shoulder to stop Alan from bouncing up and down like a dog that had just heard its owner pronounce walkies.

Alan took a breath and tried to hold himself still. This was harder to do than it seemed. Around him the little cottage that had grown to be a familiar place of peace and solitude over the past couple of days loomed out of the shadows that sprung from the lamps and soft night. He was holding his breath. And then the door opened.

He'd spent so long away from home now that the idea of stopping, and simply being, had been beyond the grasp of his comprehension. As John opened the door and was promptly barged past by Gordon, Penelope and Parker politely waiting behind in order to give the brothers some space, it suddenly hit him that this was it. It was over. His brothers were here. Brains was in the clear. They could go back to normality.

He couldn't quite remember what normality felt like.

"Hey." He twisted his hands together. His palms were sweaty. He didn't really know what to do. Instinctively he wanted to go in for a hug, but the days and lack of sleep and everything had blurred into a confusing mess.

Gordon gave an incredulous laugh. "Is that all you've got to say?" He surged forwards and flung his arms around Alan, pulling him close so that the air was knocked clean out of Alan's lungs. "Who was better company? Me for a week or Brains for three days?"

Alan buried his face in Gordon's shoulder and closed his eyes. Gordon was keeping his weight on one side to avoid straining his injured leg and there was that faint chemical smell about him that was indicative of hospitals and medicine, but he was also home in a foreign place. Alan would never admit it in a million years because his brother was a little shit and as soon as they were all back on their feet he wouldn't let it go, but Gordon was that feeling of safety, an assurance that everything was going to be okay.

John had deposited a bag on the table next to the window and was quietly conversing with Brains. It seemed surreal – all of them packed into this one tiny room in the middle of nowhere in the depths of the night – but here they were.

"Alright Gordon," he called across as Alan struggled to free himself and Gordon merely cackled and held on tighter like a deranged sloth, "let him go."

Gordon pouted but relinquished his grip. Alan elbowed him and ducked out of range as his brother went to retaliate. Penelope, nursing a cup of tea between perfectly manicured fingers, watched in amusement, a soft smile caressing her features. Parker was stood by the door as if on guard, his shoulders rigid. Old habits died hard, it seemed.

They had drinks. John and Brains made for the coffee, Penelope and Parker stood by their faithful tea and Alan and Gordon were greedy for the hot chocolate that John finally gave in and made for them. There were no marshmallows, but Alan had a leftover packet of biscuits in his backpack and they sat curled up on one of the patched couches, dipping cookies into the cocoa and licking stray crumbs from their fingers. Conversation was quick-paced and eager but dim with tiredness and Alan found himself listing to the side until he could pillow his head against Gordon's shoulder. The lack of sleep was creeping in, dulling his senses until he could barely keep his eyes open. It was peaceful. Someone was tucking a blanket around him and an arm was wrapped around his shoulders, tugging him closer until he could lay flat, resting his head in someone's lap and draping his feet off the end of the sofa.

He was warm.

He was safe.

He slept.

-

Alan couldn't quite pinpoint the exact feeling of walking into the villa on Tracy Island. The closest comparison he could make was as if he'd strolled into an old friend's house – everything was familiar and there was a warmth in his chest of contentment, but it didn't seem as though he completely belonged. The first thing that he did was make a beeline for his room, stripped off his clothes, and fell into bed where he stayed for a good sixteen hours. By the time he emerged and took a shower, the island was bustling with activity.

Gordon was battling against an armada of alien ships in the living-room, his bad leg propped up on a mound of pillows. Bright light shone from the kitchen and Alan wandered in, met by the smell of roasting chicken and simmering vegetables in a rich sauce. He lifted the lid, wondering whether he could sneak a bite, before John smacked his hand with a spoon and sent him back to the sofas to join Gordon, with a packet of popcorn to tide him over.

It was strange being home. It was even stranger with only the three of them, although Brains was doubtlessly hidden in his lab. Alan wondered about the Thunderbirds, safely concealed in their hangars below. There was a part of him that itched to go and see Three. He tipped some popcorn onto his hand and munched on it contemplatively.

Gordon held out a hand. "Gimme."

"Get your own."

He hissed. "Bitch."

Alan crunched on more popcorn with a smirk. "Jerk."

Dinner was a relaxed affair. With Grandma off-island there was no-one to tell them off for not eating up to the table, so they gathered in the Den with their plates on their laps and ate in silence, too hungry to bother with conversation.

"Everyone else gets back around eight tomorrow," John reported as Gordon scraped his fork around the rim of his plate with an obnoxious screech. He snatched the fork away and Gordon instantly used the distraction to steal the last slice of garlic bread.

Alan propped his chin in his hand. "AM or PM?"

"AM." John gave a long-suffering sigh as Gordon sprayed crumbs in his direction. "Would you quit that?"

"Quit what?" Gordon widened his eyes. "I'm the picture of innocence. Whoever could blame this sweet face?"

"Me, quite easily."

Despite sleeping most of the day away, Alan was surprised to find he was just as tired by the time night rolled around as he had been before. He guessed it was the stress of the past couple of weeks finally catching up with him. MAX came and joined him, and Alan fell asleep to the glow of a miscellaneous action movie. He woke up around two-AM to find someone had pulled the duvet over him and switched off the holo-projector. There was a glass of water on his cabinet and he drained it before rolling back over and falling straight back to sleep again.

This same heavy fatigue would plague him for the next few days. Grandma arrived a couple of hours before Scott and Virgil, accompanied by Kayo, and promptly began fussing. Alan, for once, was more than willing to let this happen, accepting her hugs and plates of charred something happily. Scott and Virgil landed around midday, greeted with cheers and streamers – courtesy of Gordon – on the runway. Scott – still obviously out-of-sorts and relying on pain meds every few hours – insisted on mothering his youngest two brothers, despite protests otherwise.

Lunch was had. John somehow forced Grandma out of the kitchen and took over the cooking himself, as the table was covered in a variety of edible dishes. Evidently the hospital had done nothing to curb Scott's appetite as he remained the black hole that he'd always been.

No-one asked about International Rescue. Alan wondered, but didn't speak. He guessed that John had been liaising with the GDF about that one. Kayo threw a strawberry at his head as he zoned out and he let the thought go.

-

Several things happened in the days after they came home.

For starters, John was struck down with a nasty cold that he'd been battling for days and now, finally relaxing, gave into. He huddled in his room miserably and sneezed so violently that Alan could hear it through their shared wall.

Virgil started flying rescues again, with Kayo as his co-pilot, Penelope helping as best she could and EOS acting as coordinator from Thunderbird Five. Scott began physio under Brains's watch, with Gordon taking control as often as he was allowed until the threat of fratricide on both sides grew too great to be ignored.

And Alan… well, he slept. There was a constant tightness in his chest whenever he woke that refused to leave. He ran, he swam, he ate, he took the vitamins and drank the vividly green smoothies that Virgil forced on him, but nothing could shift the feeling of being hunted. He wandered down to the hangars and sat in Three's cockpit for a while, running his hands over the controls and crooning to his rocket, but ultimately wound up back in bed again. At least Gordon had the excuse of resting his leg. What reasons did Alan have?

On Thursday, he went outside. John was lounging in a hammock, plastered in sun-lotion with a paperback in his hands. A small heap of tissues was collected around him. A palm tree wafted its fronds in the delicate breeze. Alan dipped a toe in the edge of the swimming pool and headed over to his brother.

"Good book?" John lifted it and Alan peered at the title. "Haven't read it," he confessed.

"You can have it after me."

"Won't it be contaminated?"

John heaved a sigh. "I have a common cold, Alan, not the Bubonic Plague." This statement was diminished by the violent sneeze that racked his entire body in shivers a second later. He blinked back tears from sheer force of it and growled, snatching at a new tissue. "God, I hate being ill. This is so inconvenient."

"Uh huh." Alan folded his arms and tried not to laugh. "Well that's what happens when you run yourself into the ground with work."

"Excuse me." John dropped his tissue in outrage. "The work that I ran myself into the ground with was saving your scrawny ass." He blew his nose and glared. "Don't make me regret it."

Alan sniggered. "Damn, I forgot how sarcastic you can be when you're sick."

John lifted his book higher, a silent demand to be left alone. Alan could get that – John was a complete introvert when he was well let alone when he was battling a bug.

It was a fairly humid day as far as the dry season on Tracy Island went. The sea was glittering, turned a soft dove where the sun was so bright that the blue was dazzled. Alan pattered around the patio, ducking his feet into the water when the tiles grew too hot to walk upon barefoot. This was home. He knew logically that he was safe. He'd grown up here; he knew every inch of this place like the back of his hand. If you blind-folded him and dumped him on one of the craggy peaks, then he could quite easily work his way back down to this very spot without too much trouble.

And yet.

The heat was eerily similar to that of the island. If he tilted his head back so far that all he could see were palm fronds and sky, the villa and roundhouse vanishing out of his vision, then he was back there. The trickle of sweat down his spine tickled, and he took a breath only to taste phantom coconut and then he was running, away from the sun and into the air-con of the villa. He was briefly aware of John calling after him, but he didn't catch the words.

The good thing about being home was that he didn't have to think about where he was running. He was sprinting, jumping over the couches to reach the corridor, the door of the bathroom slamming shut behind him. He yanked at the curtain cord with trembling hands, plunging the room into merciful darkness. His legs gave way under him and he collapsed to his knees, retching over the toilet. It seemed too hot and cold at once. His shirt was drenched in sweat, but he was shivering violently. He heaved again, spitting stringy bile into the pan and taking a shuddering breath.

He could still faintly taste coconut. He'd already brought up everything he'd eaten, but apparently his stomach was not satisfied, and he lunged for the toilet again. His heart was pounding in his chest and he tugged a hand through his hair. His fingers were shaking. He choked on saliva, fighting back a trembling sob.

What the hell was that? Some kind of flashback? If he was getting triggered by fucking palm trees and the sun, then shit. He literally lived on a tropical island.

"Shit," he gasped into his arms, propping himself up against the cool porcelain. "I might have a problem."

Apparently his mad dash to the bathroom had not gone unnoticed, and John raising the alarm meant that it was only minutes until there was a soft knock on the door. Alan shifted himself back until he was pressed into the space between the toilet and the wall, drawing his knees close to his chest.

"Alan?" There was another rap on the door, quieter. "Can I come in?"

Alan wrung his hands in the tangled hair at the back of his head. It was damp with sweat. "Yeah, okay."

Virgil pushed open the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him. "John said you ran back inside like a bat out of hell." His expression softened. "What gives?"

"Uh…" Alan sniffed. "I don't know…there's so much, Virg. We're home but it's still not over. It's like I'm still dreaming."

"Okay." Virgil's face was shadowed with concern. "Can I sit?"

Alan shrugged. "It's a free country."

Virgil sat down against the wall. Alan shuffled out from his position in the corner to sit next to him. He could just about glimpse his face in the mirror above the sink; flushed and tearstained. He grimaced. It was not a good look.

"Talk to me?"

Alan shook his head. "About what?"

Virgil gave him a knowing look. "This. What you're dealing with. I don't know what you went through, but it was a traumatic experience. No one's assuming that you're okay and it would be unfair to expect you to be. It's going to take time, but, and don't hold me to this because I'm no expert," he smiled, "it tends to help if you talk to someone."

"When we were there, it was terrifying, all the time. Just this constant panic…that we were gonna lose Scott and then Gordon's leg got infected and I was faced with this reality of being stuck there forever completely alone and it's that feeling that I can't get rid of."

Virgil didn't say anything, despite obviously wanting to. Alan appreciated that. Virgil always had been a good listener.

"Did Brains tell you about the coach trip?"

"He suggested that I should talk to you. I figured it was better to let you come to me."

"I threw up in a restaurant bathroom and had a panic attack on a bus."

Virgil looked horrified. "What?"

"To be fair, I had just had a really bad nightmare. And just now, when I ran in here? Certain things just remind me of the island and then it's like I'm actually back there, feeling it all over again." Alan huffed a humourless laugh. "Fucking coconuts, man. I keep tasting them. I'm never gonna have a pina colada again and Kayo's gonna be well disappointed in me."

"I'm going to ignore the fact that Kayo's apparently been giving you alcohol and focus on the other part." Virgil's voice grew softer with worry. "You've been having panic attacks?"

"Uh…kind of?" Now that he said it aloud, he felt a little ridiculous. Maybe he was blowing this whole thing way out of proportion? "But that's not…I know how to…it's not a big deal. I just want to be able to go outside without freaking out."

"How is it not a big deal?"

"Because I know how to deal with them?" Virgil opened his mouth to speak and Alan shook his head. "Nope. Nuh-uh. We're not talking about that right now." He stretched his legs out across the tiles. "I keep seeing it. The island. All the time. Every time I try to sleep, whenever I go outside. And it wasn't the experience itself that was the problem, it's that feeling."

"You're home."

"I'm aware of that," Alan deadpanned.

Virgil, ever-patient, ignored this comment. "Yes, but maybe we need to remind you of that a bit more. We can't just jump back into normality because things have changed. We're all different than we were before."

Alan sighed, wearily. His eyes were stinging slightly. "What if I don't want to be different?"

"It's not being different that's bothering you."

"True." He shivered in his damp shirt. "Hey, Virg? What if this doesn't go away? The nightmares and all of it?"

Virgil gave him a warm smile. "Aw Allie, c'mon." He offered an arm and Alan scrambled closer, slumping into the hug. "I know you don't believe that."

They sat there for a little while. Alan was still shivering, and Virgil forced him to strip off the shirt, flinging it straight into the wash. Bundled up in Virgil's old college sweatshirt and picking out patterns from the shadows across the floor, it was easier to feel safe.

"It'll be okay."

Alan felt very young, but he had to ask. "Promise?"

Virgil didn't hesitate. "I promise."

-

"Knock, knock."

Alan rolled over, crushing the empty packet of cookies in his wake, and peered at the figure leaning against the doorway. "You know that works better if you actually knock on the door, right?"

Scott chuckled. His crutches were shoved under his arms and there was a scrap of bandage visible from under the collar of his shirt, but he was definitely looking better. "We're having a family movie night. I said you could have first pick, but Gordon's already in the Den and he's edging towards Night at the Museum, so I'd hurry up if I were you."

Alan groaned. "We saw that last movie night. And the one before that."

"He's claiming it's a tradition." Scott frowned at him, suspicion calculating across his face. "Is that the last packet of cookies?"

"What?" Alan shoved a cushion in front of the evidence. "No!"

"Hmm." Scott didn't look too convinced, but clearly he was in a forgiving mood for he let it go in favour of holding the door open. Alan leapt off the bed, landing on all fours and bounding into the corridor, skidding on the floorboards.

It had been roughly three weeks since his chat with Virgil (and then another chat involving a family camp-out in his room) and things had been looking up. His sleep was still broken with nightmares and he spent much of the day napping – here, there and everywhere; John kept complaining that it was like having a cat – but he was safely able to sit out in the sun without becoming overwhelmed. He doubted that he would ever be able to taste coconut again, but to tell the truth he could live with that.

Virgil had set up a schedule to try and keep things regular, announcing that it would help them all to readjust to everyday life – although their lives had never been what one would consider everyday. John, still on Earth, now recovered and working in the field while International Rescue was still down three operatives, was in charge of the cooking with Grandma relinquishing control of the kitchen. Breakfast was at a set time every morning as was dinner, but lunch was more of a pick and mix throughout the day. There was designated family time in the evening, in which they'd sit and talk and laugh over old photos that John kept sneaking out of the history vaults – Virgil's emo days had been glorious – the internet never truly deleted anything. Alan had taken to helping Scott during physio, and wandered down to the beach with Kayo, who managed to coax him into the sea.

And then there was Four. Four, which Virgil had plucked from that beach, and now stood empty and alone in her pod. It had not escaped anyone's notice that Gordon didn't seem particularly eager to get back in the cockpit, and this was concerning. Alan took it upon himself to give the little sub a fresh lick of paint and ran a full systems' check, nursing her back into full health until she was well and truly shipshape. It felt good to have a new project to focus on. He was getting close to the point where he felt that he was ready to go back on active duty, but he didn't dare raise that suggestion to Virgil or Scott.

Gordon was slouched over the sofa, his head sticking off the end and a holograph of a movie cover held above his face. "I'm thinking Night at the Museum," he announced by way of greeting.

"I'm thinking you're predictable," Alan retorted, batting his brother's legs out the way so that he could sit down. His usual beanbag was undergoing cleaning following a certain person – ahem, John – accidentally spilling lasagne all over it.

Gordon sniffed dramatically. "I find that accusation highly offensive. Jury? Jury!"

John stuck his head round the door with a grin. "You called?" He caught sight of the movie in Gordon's hands and groaned. "Oh, come on, Night at the Museum, again? Way to be original, Gords."

"Ha!" Alan jabbed his brother with his foot. "Told you!"

"You are all heathens with no taste."

"Yes, well this heathen is making the snacks, so play nice," John told him, leaving them to battle it out. Alan eyed Gordon suspiciously. His brother was still banned from vigorous activity which left him with extra energy and weeks spent cooped up in the villa meant that he was bored; it was a well-known fact that a bored Gordon was a dangerous Gordon. Everyone lived in fear.

They compromised. Virgil was simply happy not to have a horror movie on, Scott had pleaded the case for Maverick too many times in the past couple of weeks, John was still in the kitchen so didn't get a say, and Alan and Gordon were both happy with Jurassic World. Grandma made a snarky comment about them not appreciating the originals, but she settled down to watch as eagerly as the rest of them. John arrived, glared at the screen and was promptly pushed into the nearest spare seat by Kayo, who leapt up onto the arm of the sofa and stretched out along the back like an affectionate housecat. She was in prime position to steal popcorn from Scott's bowl, who, with all that big brotherly exasperation, let her.

It was a nice evening. Nice wasn't the correct word, not really, but Alan was too busy leaning against Scott's legs and flinging stray popcorn at Gordon's head to care. Virgil was asleep – this was unsurprising given all the rescues he'd run earlier in the day.

"This is crap CGI," Gordon commented. Grandma, picking the icing off a cake, hissed at him and he blinked, partly shocked and partly scared. "Sorry?" She huffed. John passed her another cupcake.

"I like it," Alan announced, partially because it was true but mostly just to annoy Gordon. It was his sacred duty as the youngest sibling to be as irritating as humanly possible, and this was a role that he took very seriously. He was also on a slight sugar high. There was a warm buzz in his veins, like bubbles in lemonade and the sound of laughter and the smell of freshly cut grass and everything was alright. "We should do this more often. Make it a weekly thing."

Scott, somewhere up above him, make a humming noise of agreement. Kayo yawned and nodded; Alan could see her reflection in the TV screen.

An executive decision was made to keep it as a movie night rather than a movie marathon. Alan wasn't tired yet and helped John and Grandma in the kitchen with the washing-up. He got soap suds up to his elbows and narrowly avoided squirting washing-up liquid in his eyes, but they seemed to appreciate his help all the same.

"It's a good night for stars," he murmured, leaning against Dad's desk as he dried his hands off with a tea-towel. John glanced up from piling the last plate into a cupboard.

"Looks like it. New moon."

"Uh huh. I'm heading out for a bit. You coming?"

John stretched and grimaced as his shirt stuck to his skin. "I'll take a shower first, but if you're still up after that then yes."

Alan wandered out onto the patio, sitting down at the poolside and hooking his feet over the edge to dangle in the water. The lights cast an angelic glow across marble tiles, starshine settling about the palm trees that hung above him. He leant back until his arms protested with the strain and fixed his sights on the sky above. There were so many stars. They appeared infinite. He knew the truth.

He lay flat on his back, feet still in the water. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the stars stamped into his vision.

"Hey." John was suddenly right there, looking vaguely amused. "You fell asleep."

"What?" Alan bolted upright and narrowly avoided smacking their foreheads together. "Seriously?"

"Uh huh." John sat down next to him, dressed in that one ratty old t-shirt Gordon had gotten him as a gag present years ago. It had some sort of terrible physics pun on it and was the sort of thing that one could only really wear in bed. "Snoring like anything."

"I was not!"

"Not as bad as Virgil, sure, but snore you did."

Alan racked his brains for a comeback when something hit him. It was a little fact, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it was important and as vital as blood and water and oxygen and he stared at his brother in amazement.

John raised a brow. "Is there something on my face?"

"I slept."

"Yes… I thought we'd already covered that?"

"No, John, you don't get it. I slept." Alan seized his brother's arms and fixed him with an urgent stare, imploring him to listen because this was important. "I didn't have a nightmare."

John opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. This sort of thing was really more in Scott's or Virgil's territory. "You didn't?"

Alan shook his head gleefully. "I didn't." He leapt to his feet and laughed, spinning in a circle with his arms outspread. "I didn't have a nightmare! I slept and it was okay and I woke up and it's still okay and everyone's okay and you know what?"

"What?"

"That's more than okay."

John laughed to himself, quiet and fond. "You're a weird kid, Alan, but I'm glad you're feeling better."

"I'm…feeling better. You're right! Holy shit! This is awesome! This is a break-through. This is…oh my god. I can fly Three again."

"Pretty sure you were going to do that anyway."

"Not the point!" Alan flopped down next to him again, panting with laughter and excitement and thrumming with energy. "I'm okay."

John shook his head. "Al," he said softly, "you were always going to be okay. The difference is that you believe it now."

Alan knocked their shoulders together. Then he looked up at the stars and smiled. This was the truth. He knew it.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

It was strange coming home. Their stay in the hospital had never seemed entirely real – as though there was a thin layer of film between them and the rest of the world. This feeling never left, ever twisting and turning until it was all Gordon could do to stay in his room and not run as far and as fast as possible till the burn in his legs felt too tangible to be anything other than the truth. Tracy Island seemed even less real. Whereas before the distant crash of the surf along the beach kept him calm and relaxing into duvets and pillows, now he was forced to close the windows with shaking hands so that all was quiet as the waves brought the taste of copper to his mouth and the scratchy drought of sand to his throat until he was choking on clean air.

Finally, around forty-eight hours into their return to the villa, Gordon gave up on sleeping altogether. He was too sick of broken rest and paralysing darkness fractured by fumbling at light switches and a café's-worth of glasses of water piled onto the shelf next to his bed in an attempt to counteract the faux sand that accompanied the nightmares. In the early hours he tossed aside the book that he hadn't even read – the words had blurred after the first couple of pages and he couldn't be bothered to blink the tiredness away – and padded into the bathroom, turning on the shower as hot as it would go.

There was a moth scuttling about the light above the mirror. Its wings vibrated, rattling against the glass. Gordon hissed at it.

"Shut up."

It turned, confused by the array of glow from the mirror and the ceiling, zooming towards him at the speed of Thunderbird 1. Gordon yelped, startled, and backed away, his sleep-deprived brain not registering that there was a glass screen in the way and therefore he was not about to get a face-full of moth. His head smashed into the tiles and blackness flooded into his vision. He blinked, spots blurring in front of him in a haze, and then the floor was coming up to meet him pretty damn fast. He fumbled for something to hold himself up, missed, and instead knocked a heap of soap bottles off the shelf. One landed on his foot and he screeched and then all of a sudden, he was crouched on the floor with water cascading down around him.

"This is not one of my better moments," he mumbled, just to hear a voice. His throat was dry, sand-scratchy, so he tipped his head back and opened his mouth. This was a stupendously idiotic idea as all that happened was that he choked on shower water and spent the next minutes hacking up a lung into the drain. Only it began to feel less like trying to clear his airway and more like he had sand in his throat, again, and he was no stranger to that but he could feel it too, on his skin and in his hair and he was squeezing soap onto his arms and chest and back and legs and then the bottle was empty and he reached for another one but that was already leaking away into the water and, and, and….

He ducked his head under the steam, face upturned. All that he could hear was the roaring of the water; the thunder of it pounding against his skull. He closed his eyes and worked at scraping soap suds off his skin. When he finally looked around, the room was thick with steam. He could barely see his hands in front of his face. He spat water and the taste of sleep and blood down the drain. His leg was bleeding again, ever so slightly, soggy bandages tinged a pale pink. He watched in fascination as red marbles swirled through the water, blinking rapidly as his senses started to come back to him.

The moth was gone. He clambered out of the shower and staggered, catching his weight on the sink. His legs were trembling. As the steam cleared, he finally registered the taste of salt from tears, swimming nausea and the sting of his skin, flushed red and raw from the heat of the water and his frantic scrubbing. He didn't dare look in the mirror.

There was a towel on the rack, fluffy and new. He tugged it close, wrapping it around like a blanket. He glanced at the shower as he headed back into his room, grimacing at the multicoloured mess of shower gel smothering the floor – a spiral galaxy of pinks, purples, green and white – and then…

"Dude."

Gordon blinked. Kayo was standing a few metres away from him, brows creased in concern. She took a hesitant step closer.

"What?"

"You've been standing there staring at your door for like two minutes. You're kind of creeping me out." She reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He looked at her mutely. There was a small puddle of water dripping from his hair onto the floorboards. "Um…"

"Kayo." Scott limped out of his room where he'd evidently been listening in. He was leaning heavily on his crutches. "It's okay. I've got this."

She looked doubtful. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Go get some sleep."

A wry smile. "I should be telling you that."

"All I'm doing is sleeping at the moment; an hour without won't hurt." He gestured to her open door, sighing with fond exasperation as she hesitated a moment longer. "Oh my god, Kayo, I'm fine. Gordon's fine. Go sleep, you weirdo."

Kayo stuck out her tongue in response. Scott let this go without retaliating. Apparently there was a more important priority right now. Which, oh yeah, Gordon figured, was probably him.

"What's going on?"

Gordon frowned at him. "I don't know."

Scott looked him over and then peered at the puddle of water. "Get dressed, then we'll talk."

"That sounds ominous."

"That sounds like an avoidance tactic."

Gordon offered him a wavering grin. "That sounds like you've been hanging out with John too much."

Scott nudged the door with a crutch. "Go."

Gordon was slowly coming back to his senses. There was still that strange sensation of living at a pace easily five times behind the rest of the world and his actions were robotic. He was stepping into a clean pair of sweats and an old tee without thinking and when he suddenly became aware of his movements, his hands were busy scrubbing the towel through his hair and he had somehow moved from the door to the window. Moonlight glistened against the sea in the distance. He turned away with a sour taste in his mouth and headed for the kitchen. The towel remained discarded in the centre of the carpet. He didn't notice.

Scott was sitting up to the counter, hooking a bag of popcorn towards him with the end of one of his crutches. Gone was the put-together, calm IR persona, and here was the dorky big brother. Gordon sank into a chair and rested his chin on the countertop. A piece of popcorn rolled towards his nose. He stuck out his tongue and tried to shove it into his mouth without moving.

"I can't remember it."

Gordon blinked. The popcorn scattered away from his control. "What?" This had not been the route that he'd expected Scott to take.

"In hospital I could remember bits and pieces. Now, it's all turning to this haze." Scott flicked popcorn off the counter and back into the bowl. "You know when you wake up and at first you can vividly remember what you dreamt about, but as the day goes on, it vanishes?"

"Hmm."

"That's exactly how it is with everything that went down on the island."

Gordon yawned into his hands. "Does that bother you?"

"No. I can't say that I know what you're going through, because I can't remember most of it. What I'm dealing with is purely physical."

"This isn't some kind of trauma thing."

"Isn't it?"

Gordon fell silent. He got up and poured a glass of water to buy himself more time. The tap slipped beneath his fingers and a thin spray of icy water smacked into his face. He hissed at it. Scott was doing his very best not to laugh.

"Why won't you talk to me?"

Gordon, nursing his glass of water and now perched on the counter itself, looked up. Scott didn't appear hurt as such, more intrigued, but there was that little head-tilt and the way he was flattening popcorn beneath his palms that hinted otherwise.

"It's not that."

"It very clearly is. I know I can be…"

"Overbearing?"

Scott narrowed his eyes. "Thanks," he muttered.

Gordon slurped water and nearly choked. "You asked."

"I didn't, but sure." Scott slumped against the counter, propping his chin up. The kitchen was very dark and as the moon was obscured by clouds, it grew dimmer still. A soft glow from the clock cast them both in a pale green light. "I don't mean to be, if that helps. Look, I don't mind if it's not me you talk to. Go to Virg, hell, go to John, but talk to someone. You can't bottle this shit up."

"Language."

Scott didn't seem impressed. "Gordon."

"Scott." Gordon dropped his glass into the sink and buried his hands beneath his thighs to keep himself from fidgeting. "You want the truth? I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. We're here, Brains is free, and in a few months, we'll probably be flying rescues as usual. It seems too good to be true."

"I get that."

Gordon snorted. "Yeah."

"No, seriously." Scott stared out at the swimming pool, the palm trees, the drip of the tap into the sink that they needed to get fixed; anything to avoid meeting his brother's gaze. "Feeling as though everything's some sort of trick and it's going to collapse any second? I get that."

"Um…" Gordon had a sneaking suspicion about this. "Air Force?"

"Air Force."

He knocked his heels against the counter. "Well shit."

"That pretty much sums it up, yeah."

Gordon wasn't privy to many of the details about Scott's crash, if any, but what he did know was that it had been bad. There were ghosts that would probably haunt his brother for the rest of his life, and that was something that he didn't know how to address. "How did you deal with it?"

Scott seemed to be considering something. Gordon leaned across and flicked him. "Hey. Don't give me that crap where you leave out a ton of details because you're trying to protect me. I know you mean well, but it's not gonna help me here." He drew his feet up onto the counter to sit cross-legged. "So? Coping suggestions? I'm open to all ideas here. How did you get over it?"

"With a bottle at first," Scott muttered. "Kidding, I'm kidding." Gordon rather suspected that he wasn't but didn't call him out on it. "Therapy, I guess. I talked with Dad and John. Letting someone know what you're dealing with so when it hits you, they notice and can draw you back to the present."

"Was John's psychology obsession because of you?"

"No, that was just Johnny being a nerd."

Gordon laughed quietly. "Figures."

They polished off the rest of the popcorn. It was the microwave kind with a spot too much butter and a lack of salt and sugar but it was that time of the night where all snacks tasted great and hell, Gordon was just happy to be able to sit here and laugh over random nonsense with his big brother. Dad was gone. They couldn't lose Scott too.

"And you won't."

Gordon blinked. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Uh huh." Scott looked vaguely amused. "You need to sleep."

"Tell me about it. If I wasn't seeing you and Alan die every single fucking time I close my eyes then I would." His voice broke and he immediately buried his face in his arms.

"Hey." Scott's hand settled on his back. Gordon took a shuddering breath. "Don't hide."

"I'm not hiding."

"We're home. You're allowed to be a mess right now."

Gordon raised his head from his arms. "I'm just really tired…real damn tired."

Scott gave him a sympathetic smile. For all the best of intentions in the world, no matter how badly both of them wanted everything to be okay, the world didn't work that way. There was no magic cure-all.

"I can't promise you sleep," Scott began hesitantly, "but I can promise you terrible action movies and a parrot that insists on screeching outside my window at five in the morning every day." He held out a hand. "What d'you say?"

Gordon took his hand. "Okay, Scooter."

"I'm gonna need that hand back, by the way. It was more of a gesture."

"No."

"I have crutches, what do you want me to do? Hop?"

"I'd offer to carry you but you're freakishly tall, so…"

"Whatever you say, midget."

"Take that back right now."

-

Recovering is hard work. This could be perceived as somewhat ironic, given the sheer amount of rest that it calls for, but the numerous setbacks, pain, frustration and broken sleep all more than make up for this. It takes time – and plenty of it.

Gordon had never been one for laying around the house. He was constantly on the move, searching for new ideas and adventures – even on movie nights, he was always the one to switch positions constantly; from curled up in a corner of the sofa to stretched out, feet in another's lap, to draping over the back of the chair to sprawling across the floor and tying Virgil's laces together whilst the elder was still fixated on the TV screen – and sitting around doing nothing was bound to drive him up the wall crazy – perhaps even both.

So much time spent simply flaked across the sofa tossing a tennis ball up in the air and catching it again, ordering the most random things he could find on Amazon and binge-watching as much Netflix as humanly possible meant that by the time night dawned, he was not in the least bit tired. This had become more and more of a problem the later on in his recovery he got – he hadn't suffered from insomnia since he'd been fifteen and it was not an issue that he cared for. It did, however, mean that he was very much awake when the first scream ripped through the house.

It was quiet in his room. Gordon was sprawled on his bed, sheets tangled hazardously about his ankles – the aircon was playing up again and despite cranking all the windows open as far as they would go, it was still hellishly hot. The fresh air from outside carried with it the hum of insects and chirping of distant creatures in the tree covered south. If he tilted his head to a certain angle, then he could make out the stars through the blinds.

He was, fundamentally, bored. It was around two-AM – it had been half-one last time he'd checked, and around half hour must have passed since then. The pool was gleaming in the moonlight as though it were calling to him, and Gordon buried his face in the cool side of his pillow with a strangled cry. He lifted his foot – the leg not currently held captive by bandages – and rested it against the cold wall, accidentally knocking a poster loose. He reached around and snatched it up with a growl – it was one about whales, and he carefully secured it back onto the wall with spare blue-tac. What if he made the walls a giant whiteboard and attached everything with magnets? That would be easier.

This – obviously very important – train of thought was rudely interrupted by a raw, human scream. Gordon bolted upright, heart pounding in his chest as he listened carefully. For a moment he thought he'd imagined things, but then there was another pain-filled cry and he scrambled out of bed, fumbling at the door handle in his desperation to get out into the hallway. Virgil, who'd been on night shift for IR, skidded to a halt and shot him a look.

"Not you then?" Gordon tried to joke.

Virgil glared at him. "Not John either."

"I know."

They looked at each other. "Alan."

Alan's room was next to John's – who was currently still on Earth given the lack of healthy field operatives available for International Rescue (plus he was still recovering from a certain devil cold) – so it was no surprise when they arrived to find the door already ajar, a thin beam of gold spilling into the hallway. Virgil gently pushed it further open and tiptoed in as quietly as possible – this was a somewhat hysterical sight – a tall, bulky man in a loose t-shirt, sweatpants and a ridiculous pair of stripy socks attempting to practically dance across the carpet. Gordon had no such qualms and shoved past him to bound over to the bed.

John was sat on the edge of the mattress, blankets in a twisted heap at his feet. He hadn't been on duty and Gordon took a moment to silently laugh at the mess of blond hair sticking out at all angles before turning his attention to the younger brother in question. Alan was curled up as small as he could as though trying to hide from the world, face pressed to John's chest. He was trembling and, despite John's whispered reassurances, was still crying, the sobs muffled in the fabric of his brother's top.

"What's wrong?" Virgil whispered.

"I don't know," John mouthed at him. He returned his attention to rubbing gentle circles into Alan's back with his thumb, confusion mixed with concern still playing across his features.

Gordon came and settled down at the edge of the bed. "Hey Al," he murmured, reaching out tentatively with one hand. Alan didn't flinch when he rested his hand on his back, and Gordon took this to be a good sign. "What's going on, bud?" Virgil was looking at him incredulously. "I'm channelling my inner Scott," Gordon whispered across to him. Virgil rolled his eyes and padded over to join them. His dumb socks were leaving fluff on the carpet.

There was a muffled croak from John's shoulder. Gordon leant closer. "Can you repeat that? The oldies are a bit deaf, y'know?" He dodged a light punch from Virgil for that one.

Alan lifted his head. His eyes were red and the tear-tracks down his face were more obvious in the light of the table lamp. "Sorry," he repeated.

John frowned. "What for?"

"Waking you."

Gordon felt something cold and heavy clench in his chest at that. He didn't usually see Alan like this – as the second youngest, he had never been the one to offer comfort, even after their Mom's death, but following the island there was a new sense of responsibility. "Aw Allie," he murmured. "It's cool. I mean, we get to see John's amazing bed hair now, and I think that's well worth it."

Alan gave a wet laugh at the same time that John ran his fingers through his hair and glared at Gordon. There was no real heat to it, and Gordon shrugged at him. He patted the bed next to Alan. "Can I sit? Your carpet has way too many questionable stains for me stay down here any longer."

"I'm pretty sure the stains are from that time you exploded paint bombs in here." Alan's voice was still rough from screams. He sniffed and tried to rub any traces of tears from his face. "But yeah, get up there then."

Virgil was still leant against the end of the bed and gave an overly dramatic sigh when Gordon motioned for help up. Now settled on the mattress, Gordon grabbed at the blankets and tugged them closer, arranging them in a rough nest. He settled his hands on the top and gave his brothers a serious look.

"Now," he announced deadpan. "Welcome to Gordon's therapy session."

"Are you sure you should be running the session?" Virgil questioned, a grin twitching at his mouth. "I thought talking about yourself in third person was a sign of madness."

"Minor details." Gordon flapped a hand at him. "Back to Alan."

"No, really." Virgil continued, thinking aloud. "I think John's the most mentally stable person here. He should run the session."

John gave a surprised bark of laughter without meaning to and slapped a hand to his mouth. "Me? I can think of numerous occasions that suggest otherwise. I'm pretty sure it's you, Virg."

"What? No."

"Remember Harvard? That strikes me out."

"It was one time."

"Five times."

"Yeah, as great as this is," Gordon cut in, "can you stop having your conversation that makes absolutely zero sense to me or Alan? Thanks."

It was quiet for a while. Alan drew his knees up close to his chest and buried his face on the top. He was shaking beneath Gordon's hand and John tugged him closer, concern flitting about his gaze when Alan didn't respond to either of their questions.

"Alan?"

There was a definite sob.

"Hey." Gordon tried again. "What's going on in there?" He tapped at his brother's head. Instead of the usual exasperated sigh he would be treated to, or a muffled laugh, there was only another cry. Now growing seriously concerned, Gordon shot Virgil a helpless look. "What do we do?"

Virgil hesitated. He tapped John's shoulder, whispered something inaudible, and then left. Gordon had a sneaking suspicion as to where he had gone but kept quiet. All he could do was remain where he was and hope that Alan would decide to talk to him.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. There were two pairs – one quick paced and other slower, more limping. John gave a small smile of understanding and stretched out a foot to kick the door further open.

"He won't talk to us," Virgil's voice was just about audible.

"Keeping the lights on won't help," the second person pointed out.

The room was pitched into darkness. Glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to the ceiling in the perfect mirror of the constellations above illuminated them all in a pale green light. Gordon blinked frantically to try and adjust his eyes to the sudden change. There was a new presence in front of him and he narrowly avoided jumping, recognising the familiar face just in time.

"Hey Allie," Scott whispered. "Monsters under the bed bothering you again?"

There was a quiet laugh from John. "Jeez, I remember that. You used to make us check under the bed every night for you while Dad was in space."

For a moment there was silence. Then Alan raised his head. "I was four."

"Fourteen more like," Gordon teased. Alan glared at him and made to push him off the bed.

"You want us to go?" Virgil offered quietly from the doorway. It was unsure whether he was asking Scott or Alan but either way there was a definite no as Alan shook his head vehemently.

"Stay."

Virgil, framed by a patchwork of soft mint stars, looked to Gordon uncertainly. Alan caught the exchange and unwound himself from the pile of limbs he'd folded himself into in favour of reaching out and catching Virgil's wrist.

"Please."

That was the word that broke the dam. Gordon scooted along the bed to let Virgil sit next to him and managed to hold back on any teasing remarks about the way the mattress definitely sunk. John shifted out a little, collecting himself on the end of the bed and neatly spreading the blanket across the five of them as Scott took his place at Alan's side. It wasn't cold, but there was something about having the old quilt there – a barrier between them and everything that stood beyond these walls.

When waking nightmares spilled into sleep rather than the other way around, there was something terribly wrong with the world and Gordon didn't even know how to fix himself, let alone where to start with Alan. He met Virgil's searching gaze with a helpless flip of his hands, safely hidden from Alan and Virgil simply grinned and flicked his forehead. Gordon smacked his hand away. Virgil yawned and listed forwards to lean his head against Gordon's shoulder, which, yeah, okay, message received. Gordon didn't have to have the answers – he simply had to be there.

There was a time for words and there was a time for silence. Gordon caught John's eye and raised a brow. His usually space-bound brother nodded towards Scott, as in, wait. Gordon never had been good at patience, but he collected himself together with a sigh and shifted closer to the centre of the mattress as Virgil slumped further against his shoulder. Apparently, he was growing immune to coffee. Either that or days of carrying International Rescue on his and Kayo's backs alone, even with Penelope's help, was growing exhausting, especially with John still recovering from 'the cold from hell, I'm not kidding, this is devil-spawn, don't laugh at me guys, I'm being serious here.'

Scott was talking quietly, in that low, calming tone that he'd picked up over the years. Alan occasionally murmured something back, too soft for Gordon to really distinguish the words, but his little brother's shoulders were no longer trembling, and Virgil had crumpled into a ball, snoring where he'd fallen to practically sprawl across Gordon's lap, so maybe everything wasn't so bad. He clenched his hands into fists against his knees and closed his eyes, the glow-in-the-dark stars still stamped into the backs of his eyelids.

"Gordon, how are your fish doing?"

Gordon snapped back into awareness. "What?"

John watched him intently. His eyes were their natural sky-blue, more like Alan's, as opposed to the bright unnatural green of his contacts. "Your fish," he repeated. "How are they? I kept an eye on them while we were looking for you, and then MAX took over while we were off-island."

"Uh…" Gordon racked his brains. "Yeah, they're good." He brightened. "The cardinal tetras are breeding again and I'm thinking about moving the clown loaches into a bigger tank. I've got a few ideas for the design already, I just need to order the stuff in."

John had that stupid self-satisfied smirk on his face. Gordon glanced down at his hands and found that the tension had leaked away. "Oh, I get it now, you smug bastard. You think you're so clever, don't you?"

"I am."

Gordon broke into a smile. "Kinda, yeah."

John, visibly pleased with himself, stretched until he was laid flat across the length of the bed. That extra inch or two that space gave him over Scott had his feet dangling off the edge as he left enough room for Virgil to remain in his weird curled up, cat-like position at the head of the mattress. Gordon slid down until he could rest his head on Alan's knee, giving up on his legs as a lost cause as Virgil was still holding them captive.

"Are we stayin' in here tonight?" he yawned up at Alan, who looked very young and uncertain in the dim glow, like a wounded animal caught in the headlights.

Scott nodded.

"We should talk about this," John murmured. Gordon sidled a hand closer, aiming a jab at his brother's funny bone, but a single glare from Scott was enough to stop him. "Really. Gordon, I hear you get up and walk about the house every night. Alan has nightmares too. This is just the first time I haven't been the only one to hear him."

Scott flinched at that one. John didn't mean it as a criticism and they both knew it, but it still stung to hear that their kid brother was hurting, and they hadn't necessarily noticed. Alan, mostly asleep, flung out a hand, almost smacking Gordon in the face, and settled for patting his brother's head instead.

Gordon snorted a laugh. "Bro. What are you doing?"

"I don't know," Alan mumbled, voice thick with sleep. "Making sure you're okay."

John propped himself up and shot a pointed look at Gordon and Scott as if to say, well there you go. That's your problem. He also had that vaguely disappointed air about him that demanded them all to fix your shit, god guys, you're a collective disaster, but then again that was John on any given day, so it didn't particularly count for much.

"Alan," Scott said slowly, "we're all still here. This is home. We're all safe. It doesn't feel like it, but you trust me, right? So trust me when I say you're safe. You're not alone. You're never going to be alone. We're not going to leave you."

And holy shit. Gordon didn't know how Scott did it. The guy was a frickin' mind-reader or something when it came to Alan, because from the way his brother flinched, that was exactly what had been playing on his mind and in his nightmares.

"Scotty."

"Yes?"

"I know."

Scott's eyes were suspiciously bright in the light of the artificial night sky. "Love you, Alan."

"Love you too."

"Saps," Gordon coughed into his hands and laughed as Scott reached across and prodded him in the ribs. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding." Virgil rolled over and Gordon yelped as the breath was knocked clear from his lungs. "Dude, why are you so heavy? I can't breathe."

"Shuddup," Virgil grumbled. "So loud. Dumbass."

John folded his arms beneath his head in a mock pillow and closed his eyes. It was hard to tell if he was asleep or not, but as Virgil's breathing evened into snores and Alan relaxed against Scott's chest, they all fell silent anyway.

Gordon gazed at the stars. "Scott?"

"Hmm?"

"This is real."

Scott's grin was audible in his voice. "Yes, it is."

"Love you, man."

"Right back at you, Fish."

-

Getting his cast off was probably single-handedly the best moment of Gordon's life (this may have been a slight exaggeration but sue him). Even without an actual fracture and the wonders of modern medicine, he'd been stuck in plaster for a good couple of weeks now simply due to the extent to which the original infection had spread. Now he was sitting on the edge of one of the beds in the infirmary trying his best not to fidget as Brains ran the final scans over his leg.

"So?" He shifted a little closer to try and peek at the screen. "Can I go swimming again?"

Brains peered at him over the top of his glasses. "Well," he said slowly, "technically you shouldn't be doing strenuous activity for at least a-another month."

"What?"

Virgil, standing at Brains's side, lost his grip on the serious expression he'd been holding. "Gordon, he's kidding. You're free to go back in the pool, just make sure you take it easy for a while."

The rush of elation was almost as amazing as the sensation of being able to run freely without the added weight. It took a bit of getting used to and for the first hour or so Gordon found that he kept overcompensating; Virgil was forced to rescue him on the way upstairs. Brains buried himself back in his lab, despite protests otherwise, and after safely escorting Gordon to the lounge, Virgil went and joined him to continue their usual nerdy discussions – far too many brain cells in one room.

John was perched at the kitchen counter, papers splayed across the surface and holograms springing about him. A stern man with a thick moustache and gravelly English accent was projected into being, his brows drawn together with frustration.

John didn't look much better. "Yes Mr Mannerings, I understand your concerns, but please rest assured that our position remains stable and there is no reason to cut your…Mr Mannerings, please, if you would just let me explain…"

The hologram cut out. John dropped his head to the countertop with a groan that shook his entire frame. "What a prick," he muttered to himself, crumpling the edge of a file in his fists. Gordon sidled closer and pulled out a chair.

"Trouble?"

John slid a file across to him. "Tracy Industries. Despite the fact that Scott and I usually share the work equally so I am perfectly competent, there are some investors who don't trust the," he made finger quotes, sarcasm dripping from his words, "'scrawny space kid who doesn't know the first thing about business'."

"That's bullshit," Gordon shot back immediately and hopped off the stall to meander across to the fridge. "Raspberries or mango?"

"Raspberries." John dropped another file on the top and reached for a new highlighter. "There's a whole backlog to get through." He kneaded his temples, frowning. "God, I just hope we don't get a callout. I'm gonna be up half the night if we do."

"Ask Scott to help," Gordon suggested, rinsing raspberries and transferring them into a clean bowl, free of any chocolaty fingerprints from a certain younger brother's baking adventures earlier in the day. "He's bored outta his mind anyway – you know he'd leap at the chance."

"He needs to focus on recovering."

Gordon set the bowl down on the counter between them, sliding a heap of marked sheets out of the way. "I don't think sitting around looking at paper and occasionally making a phone call is going to break him."

John reached for the raspberries. "Have you met our brother? He has a tendency to take on too much too soon. If I give him one thing, he'll do five." He paused, fingers stained red with raspberry juice, and inspected Gordon. "Hey, you got your cast off."

Gordon grinned. "Aye." He stuck out his leg for inspection. "All ready to start training for my next Olympic medal." He stole a raspberry from John's hand. "Or, y'know, just get back out there."

"If you want someone to spot you, then give me a shout." John shot the papers a look of pure venom. "God knows I could do with an excuse to take a break."

Gordon left him the last of the raspberries and slid down from his chair. "Meet you in the pool in ten?"

"Hmm," John murmured back, attention once again caught by the string of numbers spiralling across the holographic display in front of him. Gordon left him to it. If he didn't show up outside within the next quarter of an hour, then the old throw 'em in the pool was always a tried and tested method.

It wasn't as hot today. The sky was overcast, humidity levels so high that Gordon reckoned he could feel the rain in the air. A few daring sunbeams managed to pierce the thick cotton to reach the ocean in the distance, but it was mostly dull and stormy. He revelled in the feel of the wind against the newly bare skin of his leg and sat at the poolside dangling his feet in the water as he waited for John. A tiny figure was running along the beach, disappearing out of sight behind a cluster of boulders before reappearing at the crest of the slope that led up to the path back to the villa. Gordon squinted. Alan.

"Ew, it's a gremlin," he announced as his younger brother jogged onto the patio, flushed and panting. Alan merely flipped him off in response as he stumbled into the kitchen.

"Nice chicken leg," he called over his shoulder. "Muscle, who? You don't know her."

Gordon hissed after him. John, stepping aside to let Alan through, looked highly amused. "Good to see that you're both getting back to your usual selves."

Gordon lounged back and peered up at him. John, framed against the sky, coughed miserably into the crook of his elbow. "That cold's still hanging around, huh?"

"Virgil won't let me back up in orbit until I'm back to full health," John replied, reaching for the sun-lotion – even with the cloud cover, UV light was a bitch. "It's almost like he thinks he can stop me."

"Yeah, well he's making us go through a full psych evaluation before we can go back on active duty," Gordon tossed back. "Beat that."

John raised a brow. "Seriously?"

"Yep. The full works. He's got Brains in on it too." Gordon stretched, rolling his eyes as he gave in to the sun-lotion bottle that his brother was pointing towards his freed leg. "I'm surprised he hasn't told you, actually, given you're the one with the psychology minor and everything."

"And everything," John echoed with a grin. "He probably tried to. He was attempting to talk to me about something this morning, but I was too deep in stocks to listen." He tilted his head, concern flitting across his features. "I may have shouted at him."

"Classic."

"Don't be mean."

"Oh c'mon, you know Virg can take it. He's a big boy."

"Gordon, he cries at literally everything."

"Just because you have no soul."

"That's offensive."

"Johnny, you didn't cry at the end of Marley and Me; that's just not normal. Everyone cries at the end of that film. Kayo cried at the end of that film."

John shoved him into the pool. Gordon resurfaced to the tail end of a shout of "don't call me Johnny!" and cackled, combing dripping hair away from his face in order to peer up at his brother and pout.

"I'm still injured, technically. Way to kick a man when he's down."

John didn't seem too concerned. "You and I both know that I could ruin your life in a single instant if I so wanted to."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning don't piss me off. Meaning if you try and push me under in the deep end, I will release all embarrassing photos of fourteen-year-old you onto the Creighton-Ward servers."

Gordon gasped. "You wouldn't."

John gave a little smirk. "Are you willing to put it to the test?"

As it turned out, Gordon most definitely wasn't willing to put it to the test. The conversation eased into their usual banter and discussions of general current affairs – with not much else to do and having run out of Into the Unknown episodes, Gordon was more caught up on the states of the world than he had been in a long while.

It felt great to be back in the pool. Swimming came as naturally as breathing to him and by the time he clambered out with his legs slightly trembling with exertion, he was riding on an endorphin high. That faint scent of chlorine that clung to him was back no matter how much shampoo and soap he scrubbed into his hair and he'd missed it. He felt more like himself than he had in a long while. Even John seemed more relaxed, and when Gordon headed into the lounge to watch the thunderstorm roll in from the sea, his brother was sitting at the counter with Scott, quietly discussing the files at hand.

"And they say my advice isn't good for anything," he muttered to himself, not bothering to hide his smug smile at the sight. Alan, freshly showered and draped over the sofa to rest his chin on the top, glanced across.

"I fixed Four up for you."

Gordon had been expecting a whole variety of different statements to come out of Alan's mouth, but this was one scenario he hadn't anticipated. Other than checking in with Virgil about his sub back at the hospital, and then following those news headlines and the inevitable retrieval, he'd tried to avoid thinking about it. Four brought a warm glow of affection and familiarity to his chest, but she also drew memories of clashing skies and seas and scarlet-stained uniforms to mind. He wasn't sure he was ready for that. Hell, maybe Virgil was right about the whole psychological evaluation.

Alan was inspecting him with wide eyes. Gordon could see the reflection of the approaching lightning in them. "Gordon? Is that cool? I promise I didn't mess anything up – I got Virgil to check, and Brains insisted on taking a look too, so she's in top shape again."

Gordon offered him an easy grin. It was forced, but he was a good actor, and Alan was looking for approval, not searching for the lies behind it. "That's awesome. Thanks, Al."

"Do you want to head down to the hangars after the storm?"

No, Gordon really did not, but how could he say no when Alan had tried so hard and was giving him that woebegone puppy-dog look? Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that Scott was listening in and as great as their recent late-night chats had been, he could do without big brother no.1 flying into full-on smother-hen mode.

"Sure," he settled for saying in the end. He was going to have to get back in the saddle sooner or later; the world needed International Rescue and International Rescue needed a sub – and as great as Kayo was in Four, it was really only a job for a qualified aquanaut. Gordon was painfully aware that he was the only one around with that specific job title.

He stared at the lightning. A great fork split the sky in two, slicing between fiery black and ghostly grey to boil the ocean below. It didn't matter how many times he saw it – the power of mother nature never failed to awe him. From the looks of things, the same applied to Alan, who was gawping at the thunderstorm as though it had just taught him the secrets to life – a little bit of wonder and a little bit of fear.

-

Four gleamed under the spotlights, sat in her Pod rather than the aquatic launch from Tracy Island. Her paintwork was immaculate, the usual cheery yellow glossy and sheer. She struck a merry little figure, if a little lonely, and Gordon felt a pang of longing. He had missed his sub. An affectionate smile twitched at his mouth as he trailed a hand along her side, smooth metal curving beneath his fingertips. Every last bolt, miles of code, fragments where saline water had snarled and sneered its way into the engines – all of it was lovingly fixed until there was no sign at all that the Thunderbird had been left to be beaten by a storm for days on end.

Alan was flitting about the entrance to the pod. It was almost as though the storm above had transferred energy to him. If Gordon squinted, he imagined that he could glimpse sparks darting about his brother's hands and hair.

"So?"

Gordon splayed his fingers across Four's hull and crooned to the sub. "She's perfect," he murmured with a soppy grin. "I'm gonna…uh…" He jerked a thumb at the cockpit with a sheepish smile. "You mind?"

Alan shrugged. "Go ahead. Not like I've been waiting for you to get your ass down here for days or anything."

Gordon decided that some battles were doomed from the start, and Alan was a perceptive little shit when he wanted to be, so he wandered into the Thunderbird, taking his time to mentally catalogue the equipment and the feel of the floor through his socks and even the newly replenished stock of celery crunch bars that his brother had attended to. Four's cabin lit up with a soft blue when he settled into his seat, as if welcoming him back. She always had been his second home.

"Hey baby," he whispered. "I'm back."

Four thrummed under his touch. He obviously wasn't going to go anywhere – because, hello, in a Pod right now, not water – but it was still nice to get the systems up and running and just feel that soft rush of comfort that came with being in his own ship again. It had been far too long. Why had he been avoiding this again?

The last system log – before Alan's daily check-ins during repairs and Brains's distinctive signature amongst the coding updates – recorded Four's movements during that fateful rescue. Gordon scrolled through the files and was overcome with a wave of affection for the little sub. Four had continued trying to track his heat signature for hours and hours until her fuel had depleted right down to the core and the batteries were burnt too low for anything other than an air recovery. She'd tried her best to find him, to save him, to help him. Four was a good girl. Damn, he loved her.

"Thanks, Four," he said with a gentle pat to the controls. "I'll take you out for a spin soon, okay?"

Alan shot him a snide look of knowing when he stepped out into the pod. Gordon stopped and stared at him, suspicion igniting in his mind. "What?"

Alan shoved his hands into his pockets and pushed himself off the wall with one foot. "What?"

"You're looking at me weird."

"Because I was right."

Gordon indulged him, fighting a sigh as they headed back to the lifts. "What were you right about, then?"

"You. I reckoned you just needed to get back in the cockpit and you'd get over this whole fear that you've developed. And hey, what would you know? I was right!"

"I don't have a fear."

"Not now you don't."

Gordon elbowed him and made a dive for the lift before Alan could catch him. Alan knew he was thankful. There was no need for a whole conversation about it. God knew he was going to be having one of those soon enough anyway with a different brother, because he still had one massive hurdle in his way before going back on active duty:

Gordon hadn't been back in the sea since that day and frankly, just the idea of it had his heart hammering and sweat licking his palms. How the hell could he pilot Four when he was terrified of the ocean?

-

"I need your help."

Kayo, combing her hair back into a rough tail and securing it with the first band she could find, flapped a hand at him. "Yes, well that would be great, but I have a rescue to get to. Couple of kids were messing around, screwed up some tracks, train flipped, yada, yada, I've got to go, so find someone else."

Gordon made puppy-dog eyes. She shoved past him to reach Shadow's launching seats.

"Don't give me that look. It doesn't work on me anyway."

"But Kayo, my favourite sister…"

"First off I'm your only sister and secondly," she gave him a wink, looking immensely smug, "I'm not even technically your sister in the first place, so." She saluted him. "Adios mi hermano."

Gordon growled at her. "I hate you."

"I know."

"Good luck with your rescue."

"Gracias."

Kayo had been the perfect choice for Gordon's plan because she was a strong swimmer, had a natural ability for calling him out on his bullshit, and maintained that perfect level of concern without smothering him. Now she was gone, he was left with very few options. Alan was obviously a no go, Grandma would be clucking about him if he showed even the slightest sign of discomfort, Scott was still banned from strenuous physical activity and Brains hadn't been in the ocean in years as far as any of them knew.

This left John and Virgil.

John was a good choice. He wasn't too overbearing, knew Gordon's limits and wouldn't rat him out to Scott if Gordon did end up freaking out.

However.

Virgil was his wingman, his co-pilot, his (unwilling) partner in crime and the accomplice to many of his biggest failures and successes. He also happened to be asleep in a hammock with a small swarm of ants migrating into his half-empty Coke right now. Gordon, sunglasses jammed onto his face to hide the nagging fear in his eyes, and swimming trunks at the ready, stalked over to him.

"Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey."

Virgil lifted his arm from his face mournfully. "Tell me that there's actually food to be had and you're not interrupting the first break I've had in days for no reason."

Well shit. Now Gordon felt bad. "Uh, not really." He knocked his shades free to level with his brother because sometimes honesty was the best policy and when it came to Virgil, it was often the only policy. "There's no food, but I could do with your help with something." He held up a hand before any accusations could be thrown at him. "It's not a prank. I…" He dragged a lounger closer and sank down on the end with a thud.

Virgil was watching him with wide, concerned, brown eyes. "You okay?"

"Eh. Kinda." Gordon waved a hand vaguely. "Yes and no. Just, don't freak out, okay?"

"That doesn't sound particularly reassuring."

"Virgil, please."

Virgil snapped his mouth shut. "Yeah, alright," he agreed softly, "I promise."

"I haven't been back in the ocean since that rescue. The idea of it freaks me out and it's like I'm back there trying to pull them both from the waves and there's so much blood and I…" He took a breath. Laid his hands flat against his knees. Watched an ant gorge itself on Coca-Cola. "I need to get back in the sea for me, let alone if I'm ever going to go back on rescues again. But I can't do it alone. Mostly because my leg isn't back up to full strength yet and it would be a rookie mistake to go out in the ocean with no backup when I'm not in top shape, but also because…if I do freak out, I'm gonna need someone to bring me back. So…" He looked up for the first time since his little speech. "What d'you say?"

Virgil was very quiet for a moment or two. "Let me go get my trunks," he said finally, and swung himself out of the hammock. "And Gordon?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for telling me."

Gordon knocked his glasses back into place and tried to give a nonchalant shrug. "Meh. No biggie. Go get your trunks, lumberjack."

The sea wasn't as smooth as it had been on other occasions – choppy, with reined white horses rearing their heads further out – but Gordon had chosen this day on purpose. After all, he was trying to overcome his fear and flat, tranquil waters offered no challenge – he may as well stay in the swimming pool for all it was worth. He sat on the beach for a while, burying his feet in the sand and breathing the salt air. The waves rumbled in discontent at the line of clouds tumbling over the horizon and, high above him, crowded along the cliffs like dominoes, the trees groaned.

Gordon flopped back against the sand dune. His arms were buried up to his elbows. He'd built up a tolerance to the constriction in his chest that the sensation brought, until now it was more of a comfort than it was a trigger. Exposure therapy. Whoever said he didn't read?

"Are you ready?" Virgil was stood amongst the froth at the shoreline. "Gordon?"

"Give me a sec."

It seemed that this was going to take quite a bit more courage than he'd been anticipating. He heaved himself up from the sand and fixed his sights on Virgil rather than the waves rearing above the rocky outcrops.

"This is cool. Everything is fine. I can do this."

Virgil planted his hands on his hips and gave him a look. "Of course you can."

The first few steps… weren't actually that bad. This close to the shore the waves were mere ripples, folding over like ice-cream in the sun. The water was cool, lapping at his skin, an old friend. He wandered further in, deeper, until he was up to his waist.

Virgil hovered close enough to steady him if the need arose but providing enough distance for it to feel like an achievement. "You're doing good," he offered brightly.

"Yeah," Gordon chuckled breathlessly. "I haven't drowned yet."

He took another step. And another. A couple of feet more. Then he was up to his chest and the water was churning about his ribs, dark and wild. He froze.

"Hey." Virgil's voice snapped him out of it. "You good?"

Gordon nodded. He didn't trust his voice right now. The sea was growing choppier the further he went, and he knew these waves better than anyone, but it seemed an unnatural entity, all unfathomable depths and fatal blows. A wave snarled above him, water smacking into his face and he couldn't help the shocked inhale. He was choking on water, salt harsh and stinging, and then he was beneath the surface where it was dark and quiet and easy to keep falling forever. This wasn't real. This was real. He was home, but he wasn't, and oh yes, he couldn't breathe.

"-don…Gordon!"

He spluttered on a final lungful of water, doubling over to spit salt and sea and flashbacks into the waves that bombarded his back in a series of explosions, smashing against his shoulders and spine until it was borderline painful. He reached down to try and brush a foot against the seabed, but they'd drifted out of his depth in the few minutes he'd lost, and he almost plunged straight back under. Virgil caught him and tugged him upwards, back to safety.

"I've got you. Just concentrate on breathing."

Gordon tipped his head back to glimpse the sky and bit back a hysterical laugh. "Easier said than done." Virgil's hold on his shoulder tightened until Gordon was forced to look at him. "What?"

"It's okay. You're doing good."

"I just swallowed half the ocean because I freaked out – I think your definition of good needs a little work."

"You're still in the water."

Gordon shivered. "Don't remind me."

"No, I mean you're still in the water. You had a moment, sure, but you didn't quit."

He took a moment to consider this. "Huh. I guess you're right." He sucked in a deep breath and caught Virgil's eye. "Can you let go? Just… be ready to catch me again."

"Sure."

For a moment, he simply floated, treading water and keeping his sights on his brother, the sky, the treeline on the cliffs, anything other than the turbulent seas about him. Then, gingerly, he reached out and fell into a gentle swimming stroke, merging to front crawl until the anxiety in his chest and mind had diminished enough for him to ignore it and simply appreciate the feeling of being back in his natural habitat once again. He switched to butterfly and swam a couple of lengths before a slight twinge in his leg reminded him that his limits were currently far lower than he was used to.

"Well," he announced cheerfully as they stumbled back up the beach, leaning slightly more on Virgil than he'd wanted to, "I'd say that was a success."

Virgil grinned at him. "Go on then. I know you want to." He held out a fist obligingly.

Gordon stared at him. "Really?" he whispered in a faux-shocked voice, laughter bubbling up as he bumped their fists together and drew his hand back with a flourish.

"Always with the Big Hero Six references."

Gordon elbowed him. "Obviously. We should watch it next movie night."

"Alan cries when Tadashi dies."

"Virg, you cry when Tadashi dies."

Virgil huffed. It was all in good humour. "You have no proof."

"Actually, I kinda do. An hour's worth of video footage, in fact."

"When? How? And…just why?"

"For my devilish plots, obviously." When there was no immediate comeback, Gordon glanced across to check Virgil hadn't fallen off a cliff or anything. The path was rather narrow at this point. "What?"

Virgil was watching him with that stupid, soft expression. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

"Careful, your lone brain cell might suffer."

"Ironic coming from you."

"Fight me."

"Ah, little brother, I would crush you."

Gordon flexed. "You want to take on the Olympic champion with several bar fights under his belt? Go on then."

"I can distinctly recall you losing most of those so called barfights. Anyway, you always drag me or Scott in to help, so they don't count." Virgil shook himself and glared at Gordon. "Quit distracting me. I was going to say how well you're doing. All of you. You've recovered ahead of schedule-"

"Oh I had a schedule, did I? What happens if I don't meet the deadlines?"

"-And I'm really proud of you."

Oh god. Gordon quickened his pace. "Don't go all sappy on me, bro," he groaned.

"I almost would have believed you there if you didn't have a smile like the Cheshire Cat on your face."

"I'm going to paint Two pink."

"Uh huh. I believe you. Still proud."

"No. No. Ew, what is this? Emotions." He whirled around with an outraged gasp. "I'm feeling, Max, I'm feeling!"

Virgil looked several shades of done. "A, that wasn't the correct quote and B, you can't reference the Grinch when it's not Christmas."

"Of course I can. If I can rock gold eyeliner to a movie premiere and not end up murdered at Penny's hands as a consequence, then I can quote the Grinch before Christmastime."

"You exhaust me."

"The feeling's mutual, bro."

Virgil sped up to a jog. Gordon cackled after him.

"You can't escape me forever, Virgil! I will find you! I will quote the Grinch at you! You'd better run far, bucko, you'd better run real far!"

-

While the cat's away, the mice will play. Or, in this particular case, while Virgil was away on a rescue, Scott was apparently determined to push himself past his limits. Gordon, leant inconspicuously against the doorframe to the gym, observed his brother struggling with the weights that he had definitely been banned from, and considered whether or not to step in.

The calm, logical voice in his head – that also happened to sound uncannily like a certain brother who flew a monstrous green aircraft – told him that if he didn't put a stop this, Scott was likely to do himself some real harm, possibly even reversing some of the healing he'd done. Of course, the other, mischievous voice that Gordon likened to a pixie, suggested that seeing Virgil chew big bro out later would be tremendously entertaining.

"Ugh."

Luckily for Scott, Gordon was a good human, and – apparently – a great brother too. He knocked on the door and when this gained him no response, stepped out into the room.

"Hey," he called. Scott had his back to him, and Gordon raised his voice. "Hey! Wannabe Hulk! It's time to think about calling it quits for the day."

Scott yanked an earphone out and glared at him. "I'm not done yet."

"Yeah bud, you really are."

Scott moved to heave the weight above his head again. "Back off, Gordon. And don't call me bud."

Okay, so maybe it was time to change tactics. Gordon hopped up onto the stepper-machine. This was awful. He hated responsibility. Of course Virgil had to have a rescue at the same time that John and Kayo did. They were the only ones Scott would be willing to listen to.

"You're not supposed to be lifting the heavy stuff yet," he pointed out. "It's for a reason. You only got off the immune-mods like two weeks ago – there's a reason you're not back on active duty yet." Scott ignored him, but that one earphone remained dangling against his chest, proof that he was still listening. Gordon persevered. "C'mon, Scooter. If you do yourself more damage now, then you're only going to be off duty for longer."

"Five more."

Gordon slid off the stepper. "No," he instructed, noting with caution the shakes that his brother either hadn't noticed or was too far gone to conceal. "Scott, stop."

And bam. Limits reached, and far surpassed. The bar came crashing down and Gordon darted forwards to catch it. Scott, arms trembling, finally let go, and Gordon eased the weight to the ground, hissing at the effort that came with a lack of warmup. There was something terribly sad about the helpless look Scott was directing at the bar.

"Will you listen to me now?" Gordon asked him quietly, lightly clapping a hand to Scott's shoulder.

Scott sighed. "Fine." He tore his shirt over his head and shivered in the draught from the aircon. "Virg not back yet?"

"Nope. Which you already knew or else you wouldn't have dared come down here past your scheduled PT."

Scott shot him a sideways glance, which read you got me there. Gordon flicked the lights off behind them as they headed upstairs, noting with a pang of concern that Scott was really trembling more than he should be.

"Just how hard did you push yourself?" he asked, trying to hold back a wince as he listened to the laboured breathing from his left. He held the door open, relieved to find that the corridor was empty – Alan had returned from only his fourth rescue back a few hours before, but apparently he was still passed out in bed.

Scott, automatically heading for his room – the lucky bugger had an en-suite and damn was Gordon jealous – didn't meet his eye. "Uh. I don't know. Enough to get through a playlist."

"Which one? You have two. The rock one or the kinda vibey one?"

"It's not…vibey…look, just quit worrying. It's weird coming from you."

Gordon folded his arms. "Hey. I worry about you guys all the time."

"I'm fine." Scott paused, foot stuck between the door and the frame to prevent it from closing again. From what Gordon could see through the gap, his brother's usually pristine room was in chaos, with clothes and towels strewn across the floor, folders with loose papers crumpled on the desk and even a stray sock hanging from the light fixture. The blinds were closed. Apparently big brother wasn't coping with being grounded as well as he'd have them believe. A wave of cold air blasted Gordon in the face. How high was the aircon in there? "I'm fine," Scott repeated firmly, shifting to block Gordon's view. "Really."

Stubbornness was a true Tracy trait, but Scott had always appeared to have received a larger dose of it than the rest of them. If he didn't want to talk, then there was no way Gordon would be able to force him. "Dinner's at seven," he announced suddenly, catching Scott's attention. "Be there. If you're lying to me then Grandma will spot something's wrong a mile off."

Scott softened. "Yeah. I know. Thanks, Gords."

"Uh huh. You wanna know how you can thank me?" Gordon leaned forward and prodded his brother's chest. "Don't tear those stitches." He tossed a hand up in salute. "Catch you at dinner, Scotty."

-

Gordon had spent far too much time in his room over the past month and now that he was free to roam and do pretty much whatever he wished, he chose to lounge outdoors. There was a brisk breeze ruffling the palm trees when he carried a holo-projector out onto the patio, and he took a moment to appreciate the lilac haze settling about the rims of clouds as dusk set in. He forwent a deck chair in favour of belly-flopping on the tiles. The warmth was still caught in the stone and soaked into his skin as he set up the projector and waited.

Virgil didn't keep him in suspense long. "How is he?"

"Here, there, everywhere."

Virgil rolled his eyes. "He was in the gym again, wasn't he?"

Gordon didn't like to think of himself as a snitch, but there were times when covering got you in more trouble than it was worth. Besides, if Scott had caused damaged to his still-healing injuries, then Virgil would be coming for both their heads.

"Yes," he admitted, watching a tiny red beetle scuttle along the poolside. "He was on the heavy weights. He really pushed himself past it, man, like I'm not even kidding. I had to catch the weight because his arms gave out. I'm not you or John though – he won't listen to me. Hell, maybe I should ask Grandma."

"Don't." Virgil's sharp reply caught them both by surprise. Gordon raised a querying brow. His brother raised a hand to his face and looked very tired all of a sudden. "I'll deal with it."

"I'm pretty sure it's just being grounded. He's always hated not being part of the action, even when we were kids. At least he's not going around punching walls."

"Yeah, this time." Virgil fell silent for a beat, before visibly shaking himself out of the funk. "Alright, well I'm on my way back, so tell Grandma I'll be home in time for dinner." He grimaced. "Whatever dinner is. Anything you want from the mainland?"

"Dunkin' donuts."

"Gordon, be serious."

"Have you met me?"

"Sadly, yes."

Gordon pouted. Virgil, who really should have been immune to his little brother's incredible ability to bullshit his way into anything, relented.

"Fine. I'll pick you up a box."

"Ooh, can you grab me a new pair of aviators? I want to wear them indoors to annoy Alan."

Virgil glared at him. "The day I voluntarily buy you sunglasses is the day I buy myself annoying little brothers repellent."

"That doesn't exist."

"Exactly."

"Touché." Gordon was willing to appreciate this. "Really though, if you could get another packet of aspirin because the bathroom cabinet's empty again."

Virgil audibly groaned. "Scott?"

"Actually, I think it was John. He keeps tripping over things, so he's bound to have had a few headaches by now. The sooner he gets back up on Five the better."

"Get your ass in that infirmary for a psych evaluation and he'll be able to."

Gordon blinked. "Wait, seriously? You'll let me back on active duty?"

The projection flickered, blue light ghosting across Gordon's knuckles. "Yeah," Virgil said finally, "I will. See you later."

"Alligator," Gordon finished for him, and proceeded to continue, "in a while…" Virgil remained silent. "Oh c'mon, Virg…please?"

Virgil looked like he wanted to whack his head against a brick wall. "Crocodile," he answered grudgingly, and cut the transmission before Gordon could come up with anything else.

-

Gordon took another quick swim, had a shower, fed his fish, stopped by Alan's room to rouse the kid from under his duvet, and still had time to fall into a seat at the table before dinner was served. Scott limped in a moment later, favouring his left leg. Virgil trailed after him, disapproval stamped across his features.

"You're an idiot."

"It's just a pulled muscle."

"Yes, because Gordon stopped you before you could do anything more."

Alan's emergence sparked an end to their quarrel – for now – as he dropped into a chair next to Gordon and immediately face-planted onto the empty plate in front of him. Gordon reached across and poked him. There was a pitiful whine. Gordon shot his hand back with a dramatic gasp.

"It's alive!"

Scott chuckled, and Virgil didn't bother to hide his amused snort. Grandma, left unsupervised in the kitchen – a sight which struck fear into the stomachs of all humanity – overheard her grandson's comment and joined in the banter. Gordon kicked Alan's knee and his brother lifted his head, blinking blearily.

"Is there food yet?"

"No."

"Then leave me alone."

Kayo appeared like a shadow and basked in the startled gasps she received upon suddenly speaking, her flight jacket hooked over the back of her chair and her elbows perched on the tabletop. She was twirling a dessert spoon between her fingers as if it were a knife. Even John, who had somehow managed to coax Brains out of his lab, double-took as he walked in.

"Kayo, can you not last ten minutes without being creepy?" Gordon asked her.

Kayo pointed the spoon at him and let it fall from her hand to land with a thud. "No." She cracked a grin. "Can you last ten minutes without being a dumbass?"

"History suggests a negative," Gordon replied, and she slumped back in her chair, laughing so loudly that Alan was knocked out of the soft slumber he'd fallen into.

Brains reached for a slice of garlic bread that John carried over to the table and nibbled on it nervously, fingers twitching to adjust his glasses. Scott, talking quietly with Virgil under his breath, perked up at the sight of food, and his hand darted out to snatch a piece before Alan became aware of the plate.

Dinner was some sort of grilled chicken with an exotic sauce that Gordon was seriously tempted to sell his soul for, just so that he could eat it whenever. Apparently Grandma hadn't been left in charge of dinner after all.

"I'm really going to miss your cooking when you go back up to Five," Alan announced, echoing Gordon's thoughts.

John smiled as he handed a serving spoon to Kayo. "Don't worry." His smile took on a devilish quality. "You'll have Grandma's food to look forward to."

Collective groans were muffled. Brains went a tad green. Kayo patted him on the back sympathetically and pelted Alan with a chilli slice when Granma wasn't looking.

It was fun. Gordon had missed this. Actually, he couldn't quite remember ever having something like this. There had always been another rescue, another job, something more important cropping up. A call from the GDF for Kayo, an SOS for the rest of them, John was simply never here and Brains…well, even after so many years, Brains still didn't feel entirely comfortable. It was something they were working on. But this? Having a family dinner to simply catch up and enjoy one another's company? This was something they could do on the regular. A glance across to Grandma suggested she was thinking the same thing.

"So Scott seems okay," Gordon mentioned to Virgil as they were waiting for the summer fruits pavlova to be served.

Virgil hummed. "We talked. He's a dumbass."

"Old news."

Virgil gave him a look. "You're one to talk."

Gordon leaned back in his chair so that the front legs left the ground. Virgil shot out a hand and dragged him back before he could overbalance. Gordon sniggered.

"My point is proven."

"Tomato, tomato. Anyway, talking of…well, talking… you and me, lounge, tonight? Don't make us use the infirmary. It's always frickin' freezing down there. Also it has the same vibe as a morgue."

Virgil yawned into the crook of his elbow. "Do I want to ask why you know what vibe a morgue has?"

"Probably not. College days, my dude."

"Your college days are something I never want to hear about. Ever. Point blank."

"Fair enough. Ooh, pavlova!"

-

Alan had been back on active duty for a full three weeks ahead of Gordon, but Virgil – along with John's psychology expertise and Brains being…well, Brains – cleared their friendly neighbourhood aquanaut first time through the psych evaluation. Gordon took Four out for a spin, launching straight from the island, and revelled at the sights of the rich coral reefs, teeming with life. He went EVA under John's watchful eye from Thunderbird 5 and returned two hours later, all but vibrating with an adrenaline high and the pure elation that came with being back out there.

Of course, Scott was struggling with the knowledge that he was now the only one not currently serving in International Rescue, but Virgil had assured Gordon that their big brother was coping okay and was keeping (mostly) to his allocated PT sessions. This intel seemed accurate as when Gordon snuck into Scott's room, it was back in its perfect military order which, from his perspective, ew, but at least it meant his brother was officially on the mend, mentally as well as physically.

It seemed almost ironic that the first rescue Gordon went out on was with Alan and was to rescue a small band of tourists who had become stranded on a tiny island off the coast of Anguilla during a storm-surge. As Alan commented dryly, all they needed was Scott with them, and hey presto, there they were again. Virgil, who'd apparently been listening in on their comms like a mute hawk, tore them a new one for that remark.

Alan fell silent, but his lips were twitching with the effort to restrain his smile.

"Big brother is watching you," Gordon quipped, and that broke the spell as they both collapsed into hysterical laughter that brought tears to their eyes and wavered Four a little off her course. John's avatar popped up and stared at them with that silent, judgemental expression. Gordon corrected Four's position.

"Sorry?" Alan offered, sniffing slightly. His face was flushed with amusement.

"You match your sash," Gordon whispered gleefully and ducked to avoid the fist that Alan flung towards him. "Ha! You missed!"

"I never miss," Alan deadpanned. Gordon twisted to glimpse the crushed remains of a crunch bar slightly down the window and gave a pitiful wail.

The rescue was simple. It was essentially a pickup and drop off, with a little dash of shock treatment in there too, just to spice things up. Alan, who technically didn't need to be here but was driving Scott and Grandma crazy back on Tracy Island so had been bundled into Four for safe-keeping, sat in the back and kept the youngest of the tourists, an eight-year-old boy called Daniel, company. It was the sort of mission that Gordon could have done in his sleep. There was something reassuring about that, however.

"We should celebrate," he announced over the comms. "Have a party."

"What exactly are we celebrating?" John queried, that little catch of sarcasm in his voice proof that he knew damn well what Gordon was referring to.

"My successful return to Poseidon's lair."

Virgil's avatar blinked into being. "Ready for module retrieval?"

"Aye, aye, Captain," Gordon responded, simply because he could, but also because it was a sure-fire way to irritate Virgil, who loved to do everything by the book and always had. Sure enough, he was treated to an eyeroll and a long-suffering groan. Ah, Virg. You gotta love him really.

Alan ran on up to the cockpit when the pod door shut and sealed, but Gordon hovered around Four for a little longer. He knew she would be cleaned automatically, but there was something about cleaning her himself. He'd missed Four. Four was his baby. Four had never given up on him until her body had failed her and she'd been cast away to some forlorn beach. He scrubbed the grime and the grains from her hull until sunshine yellow gleamed, casting his skin in a buttercup glow.

"Thanks, Four," he murmured, with a final pat before heading upstairs. "You did good."

Alan, thanks to small mercies – and also Virgil, but no-one was going to mention that part – had left Gordon's seat free. He was sat sideways, legs hooked over the arm of the chair and head resting against the wall. His helmet rested in his lap. Gordon gave him a poke in a pressure point as he strolled past and sniggered at the outraged cries that followed.

Virgil glanced across to him. "Good rescue?"

Gordon propped his feet up on the dash. Virgil knocked them down again. "Good rescue."

Virgil started their ascent to the internationally agreed supersonic levels when John called in with their next rescue. Alan slid upright to buckle in his harness.

Gordon twisted in his seat. "Hey rocket-boy, got any weird feelings about this one?"

Alan gave him a big thumbs up. "Nope. We are FAB."

"Hells to the yes. Virgil, my dude, take us up."

Virgil shook his head with a good-natured grin on his face. "Talking of celebrating," he said as he plotted their new course, "check under your seat."

Gordon almost bent double, flailing like a deranged octopus in order to retrieve a white cardboard box. "Holy shit. You got me donuts?"

"I got you donuts."

"You're my favourite."

A series of protests echoed across the comms. Alan reached over Gordon's shoulder and stole one from the box.

"Hey!"

"You snooze, you lose."

"You'll lose a hand if you try that again."

"Hey." Virgil cut them off. "What d'you say we go and rescue some people?"

Alan and Gordon exchanged a look.

"FAB."

Gordon shot finger-guns at his older brother and Virgil eased them into supersonic flight. "International Rescue, we are back in business."


End file.
